Shifting of the Plate
by Comma-Toes
Summary: AU. Harry Potter is dead. At least, thanks to Wormtail, the Wizarding World thinks he is. Thirteen years later, the son of a lost Dark Pureblood comes to Hogwarts with a lightning scar that only Peter knows the meaning of. Dark-ish Harry, Eventual TMRHP.
1. Folly

_**Shifting of the Plate**_

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><p>Slight AU. Peter Pettigrew performed in his betrayal in such a way that he became a celebrity, not a rat in hiding. Abandoned and thought dead, the Chosen One's life unfolds in places much darker than a cupboard under the stairs. Dark-ish Harry, Abuse, Snape Mentor and Potentially Slash.<p>

**Story Warnings: **Adult Situations, Cruse Language, Slight Alternate Universe—I've changed Peter's actions, and made one man that was a wizard in Canon a Squib, Come-and-Go Original Characters, violence and Child Abuse of _every kind._ Emotional, Physical and **Sexual Abuse** (of the homosexual variety mostly, with some hints of heterosexual sexual abuse, though not to Harry)—I will not be graphic, but there are going to be mentions of it quite a bit, though it will not be the central focus of the story. Somewhat **Dark** but not **Evil **Harry, and if it gets to that point, potentially Slash between Tom Riddle and Harry Potter. It is possible that this will be almost entirely preslash, however, depending on how my boys behave.

There will also be warnings at the beginning of the chapter if I feel there needs to be. Oh, and I'll go ahead and say it one time—**I Do Not Own Harry Potter and I'm not making money off this. **

Please enjoy. **(Thank you, Hollibell, for catching the mistake about Harry's pajamas. You're a life saver!)**

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><p><strong>Chapter One –<strong>Folly

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><p>Peter had known it would be tonight.<p>

Halloween was a powerful night and Voldemort had always been fond of using that to his advantage. That, and Peter rather thought the man enjoyed being dramatic, but he had always kept those thoughts to himself.

He kept most of his thoughts to himself. It was how, though his roots had begun healthy, he had grown twisted and gnarled over time without garnering the attention of those around him.

His friends, if he could still call them that, still believed him to be the foolish, fat infant that had let the Sorting Hat rifle through his thoughts.

Dumbledore had always said the decision was made too early.

Peter was ironclad proof of that. No one could have known that his thoughts would darken over thirteen years of being nothing more than the ugly, pitiful _pet _of three handsome men.

And Lily-God, _Lily_ -

Lily was at Hogwarts for their Hallow's Eve Reunion Ball. Even in the midst of war, Dumbledore wanted the children and alumni of Hogwarts to have a sense of normalcy. James did not have as much of his heart in the great castle; his connections were in his friends, in people, not in places. But for Lily, a Muggleborn, Hogwarts had marked a moment in her life where her eyes had been opened to a home she had not known she had been searching for.

Peter had convinced her that she should go, if only because she would be the only of the five Marauderer's –she'd been made an official member when she had married James—to attend. Sirius was out an about on Order business, Remus was busy with the full moon, James had stayed to watch Harry, too paranoid to go out, while she had _floo'd_ directly to Hogwarts. Hogwarts was still safe, after all, perhaps even more safe than Godric's Hollow, even under the strong warding spell.

No…Hogwarts was definitely more secure.

Because Peter was not the one who was in charge of Hogwart's safety, like he had been Godric's Hollow.

He'd _known _it would be tonight, that was why he'd gotten Lily out so that…well, so that she wouldn't _die. _He cared little for James, not after flanking his heels for half his life, and he felt indifferent to the son that was already a damn clone of his father's face…But Lily was different. Lily was beautiful, passionate, righteous, kind and _beautiful, _Lily, Lily, _Lily_ -

Lily had never even _looked _at him.

Peter loved her, but he hated her for that. She had even looked at Snape, that _Death Eater scum, _once upon a time. But Peter was not worth the gaze of those brilliant green eyes.

He had always been an unsightly person. Even as a child he had been picked on for his short stature, rounded body and his rodent-esque features. The length of his nose, the drastic overbite, his beady eyes and even the way he walked was all reminiscent of vermin…

Peter had always been vermin.

Even when he'd been in school and part of the _popular group, _it was only because Sirius and James deemed it so. Lupin had an idea of what it was like to be an outcast, but as he grew older, he grew more ruggedly attractive and more entwined in James's web. James was so fucking _perfect._ Loyal, brave, pureblooded, charismatic, _handsome_…

Even now, lying on the floor next to his child's bassinette, dead, he was handsome.

Cold and bloated with death, coated only in the moonlight the shone through the window, but still _bloody handsome._

It only made Peter even more certain of his betrayal when he saw the man lying there, eyes wide behind glasses that had shattered when he'd hit the ground. Oh, it was wondrous, to finally be able to laugh in the face of the dead man, now that he could no longer throw back something too humorous to be seen as insulting—

"Petaw?"

Small dark eyes shot to the bassinette that he had disregarded before.

Peter had not been all that fond of seeing a dead child, no matter how much he secretly abhorred his father.

But there he was, _unharmed, _sitting in his bed with his cherubic face coated in tears as though he had stopped crying not long ago. He was hugging the blanket Lily had made herself, crimson in color with his first name written in gold script in one of the corners.

Those big green eyes peered up at him accusatorily.

No, no, there was no accusation in those eyes. They were disturbingly innocent, almost glad to see a familiar face.

"Dada sleep?"

Peter shouldn't have had such trouble swallowing. He shouldn't have.

But Voldemort hadn't killed him? That was the entire reason he had come here, that prophecy, that was the entire reason he'd had to know where the Potter's _were. _It was why Peter had asked James to change him to secret keeper at the last moment, without anyone's knowledge, not Lily's _or_ Sirius's. Voldemort had not marked him yet, but when he did it would be as Peter's rewarded, he would be _honored _for giving him such useful information.

When he did…

But where _was_ he? Why was Harry _alive?_

"_Lumos._" Peter muttered, slipping his wand into his hand from its place up his sleeve, the light engulfing the room as he looked at the boy before him.

Harry's eyes closed and he gave a cry of discomfort as the sudden light shown in the previously dimly lit room. Before him was the one-year-old, whimpering and rubbing at his eyes, eyes that had distracted Peter from the more important attributes of young Harry's face.

A scar.

A lightning bolt scar that was not bleeding or scabbed, though Peter knew it had not been there the day before. It was a scar caused by magic, that was for sure, he could practically feel the magic flowing from the room in waves. He had thought it was because Voldemort had been here not long ago and that his magnificent presences and magic had stained the very walls with his power.

But now he saw differently.

On the wall opposite the bassinette, the wall that he had been facing away from as he walked through the nursery door, suddenly drew his attention. Harry hiccupped from his bed and gripped the side of the gate that kept him from falling, holding himself up in a standing position.

He repeated. "Petaw?"

Peter ignored him for now, hoping that the thought that had shot through his mind was wrong. It likely was, he had an overactive imagination at times. Besides, it couldn't be possible, it was _impossible, _even by magical means. _Then why was Voldemort gone and Harry still alive-?_

Slowly, the plump man turned on the sharp heel of his boot. His watery eyes went wide and his sallow pallor dipped to an even more pasty white as what he saw there. It was a large mark, almost like quite a bit of ash had been blown onto it. But there was nothing random about this display, it was no random _smudge, _it was pure power –_dark power—_in the shape of a familiar face contorted in outrage and fury.

Voldemort's face.

"O—oh, _Merlin._" Peter dropped his wand, the light from his spell flickering out as it hit the ground with a clatter. Once more the room was drenched in moonlight alone.

"Petaw? Dada sleep?"

"I—I—" Peter found himself stuttering, turning back to the baby and looking at him in absolute horror. He quickly stooped down once more to snatch up his chestnut and dragon heart string wand. It felt even bonier than it usually did in his fingers, taking a step back as his mind attempted to wrap around what was happening.

It was _impossible. _Voldemort was dead? That…that couldn't be. But the stain on the wall was proof, it was saturated in darkness so foul that it could only be from such a potently horrible man. Pettigrew had thought he was invincible, that he was joining the right side in the war, _the winning side—_

How? _How?_

Pettigrew didn't have a damn clue, but he was breathing raggedly as he tried to figure out what to do with this information.

"Dada."

The boy had given up on addressing Peter, instead sitting down to get closer to where his father lay on the floor.

"Dada no sleep. Dada no _sleep!_"

Peter was getting a headache. The boy look frustrated with his father's persistent slumber, but Peter couldn't think about the state of the child right now.

His mind spun with possibilities. His blood rushed in his ears and he grabbed a hold of Harry's crib so that he didn't grow faint. He was frightened, of the boy, of what he'd done, of what he _could _do.

Because there was so much he, Peter, _could do_.

He'd been the first to arrive at the scene. No one, as of yet, knew that James Potter was dead, or that Harry Potter should be dead. Peter was the only one that knew that somehow, this child had destroyed Voldemort. The knowledge gave him power, simply because he had been the first to know…he could use this. He had been planning to hide, but this would be so much _better._

It didn't matter how it had happened, really. He didn't _care._

Harry had somehow survived the Killing Curse. It was incredible, a miracle, it had never happened before –at least not a documented account, and _everything _in the wizarding world was documented—it should have been impossible.

But it wasn't.

It _wasn't._

Which meant that it could happen with someone else. To him. Or rather, Peter could lie and say that he had survived it, just like Harry had.

If he called Dumbledore now, or let Lily come home to find the wreckage, Harry would grow up a celebrity. He would grow up the spawn of James, the arrogant _bastard,_ while if someone like Peter were to be the one thrust into the spotlight…

He…he deserved, didn't he? After being a nothing all his _life?_

Pulling it off would not be as difficult as one might seem, at least for him. The hardest part was already done. Harry was alive, that was…all that mattered. In fact, Peter would be protecting him by taking him away from all this. The baby boy didn't need fame, he shouldn't grow up a pampered prince like his father—

This was for Harry's own _good._

No. No, it was for Peter's but it made himself feel better to put it that way, as he plotted on how to be rid of the boy.

This house was still under the Fidelus Charm because Lily was not dead—no one would find them, not until she returned home in a couple hours, not even Dumbledore if the man _sensed _something amiss (he had an uncanny ability for knowing when things went wrong). Not since Peter had been changed to secret keeper.

He didn't need long, anyway.

Quickly, he approached the boy, leaning over the wooden side. Harry sniffled, smiled and lifted his arms as though he thought he would be picked up, but Peter just awkwardly patted his messy head before using a silent spell to cut away lock of his hair.

Several strands fell into Peter's greedy hands as Harry bounced a couple of times, as though willing Peter once more to pick him up.

This time, Peter did.

He shoved the Potter's hair into his pocket as he tucked the boy under his arm, holding him rather expertly since Lily often demanded he hold the child on his visits.

Then he apparated in the middle of London, not far from where he'd been raised as a child. Sirius had once commented while they were in Hogwarts that they had grown up less than fifteen miles from each other…though Grimmauld place was inhabited by a lonely, grouchy widow, Walburga Black, these days.

Peter knew this part of town well. He had apparated here for a reason. The Hospital his mother had delivered him in (demanding to do it the _muggle way_ as a tribute to her dead, Muggle mother) was not far.

Obviously disgruntled and frightened from apparating for the first time—it was not recommended to do so with young children—Harry began to scream.

"_Waaaah! Ah—waaah!"_

Peter winced at the sound as the young boy squirmed in his hold, before setting him down in the grass on the front lawn. The winding driveway where ambulances passed through was only yards away from the spot were Harry sat and sobbed. It was Halloween, there were parents out with their children everywhere that could bring the baby inside the Hospital, and if not, he was positive that his screams could be heard from the doors were patients would be rolled in on gurneys throughout the night.

Harry's large, tearful eyes looked up at him, arms raised again as he curled his blanket to him in the autumn chill.

Peter doubted himself for a moment. Those eyes would surely haunt him, should he leave the boy here, no matter how much like James he was.

But he couldn't kill him. Even if he tried, he might not even be able to. Not just because Peter wasn't powerful, but because somehow, _Voldemort _had not even succeeded.

What _was _this boy?

"Ewaaaah—"

That was where Peter left him, apparating away once more before he was spotted.

Peter was dizzy when he landed a second time, rubbing his temples as he looked up at the entrance to Knocturn Alley, taking a breath before walking into the shadows of the darker parts of Wizarding London. Under normal circumstances he might have walked, an entrance to Diagon Ally was only a few miles away and would have saved him the trouble of apparating once more just after the last, but time was of the essence.

He scurried down the alley, keeping his head down and flinching away from the off alleys that led, he was sure, to places were a former-Gryffindor and Order of the Pheonix member would not be welcome. He had not yet been marked, that was supposed to have occurred after Voldemort had killed Harry, as an _honor,_ but now he did not have that protection in such a lugubrious, dangerous part of the Alleys.

Finding the shop he was looking for easily enough, the sign that spelled out _Borgin and Burkes _was dingy but not invisible when one was looking for it, he whispered '_Alohamora'_ on the door. It was late, and a Holiday—it was closed, but that wouldn't stop him.

This was the only place he could find what he was looking for.

James, Sirius and Remus had been foolish to think nothing of Snape. The man was brilliant at what he did, masterful at the art of potion making, and yes, he was a greasy, slimy git not worth the friendship of Lily Evans—but the memory of what the man had said during the few Death Eater meetings Peter had attended echoed in his mind.

It was what would make this idea _work._

The _Alohamora_ had not worked. Dark Magic of some sort probably locked it, and so Peter tried another stronger, darker spell that ate away the magic holding the door closed completely. It popped open with a creek, and the rat-like wizard slipped inside quietly.

Peter was nothing if not sneaky.

However, he had probably set off some sort of ward, because he heard fast, heavy footsteps coming toward him before he could get more than five yards inside. A ruff, abrasive voice met Pettigrew's ears.

"Oi, we're closed, you filthy, effing bleeder—"

With a movement more frantic than anything, Peter pulled out his wand and spun around, saying in a cracking, panicked voice, "_Imperio!"_

The heavy set, rugged man slowed, as though fighting the curse's affects, but Peter's will one out in the end. He'd gone too far for it to end because of Caractacus Burke.

It shouldn't have been a surprise that the man was here. Borgin had a wife and two children to spend the holiday with, while Burke was a bachelor and claimed often that he always would be. He had no family to speak of. That fact, Peter supposed, made him feel better about planning to kill him.

"Sh—show me to the _P-Polytoxicum_."

His voice shook a bit and the man did not move.

Gritting his teeth and steeling himself, he repeated more firmly, "_Show me to the Polytoxicum_."

There was a pause, once more Burke trying to fight the Unforgivable's weight on his brain, before he turned around and began to walk toward the back of the store in a trance. Peter found himself in the storage room behind the man, making sure to hold the curse. Peter was a horrible dueler. He was too broody to think on his feet and too cowardly to take any risks, both of which were essential in the art of dueling. He was not a powerful wizard by any means but he could do this much, holding an Unforgivable for a few minutes, especially considering what it would bring him.

Fame, glory, probably fortune if everything went according to plan, and perhaps even the admiration of those green eyes—

Burke's hands moved mechanically as he set many boxes aside and finally opened one near the bottom, obviously old and coated in a thick blanket of dust. Though the residue stung his eyes when Burke opened the lid, Peter maintained eye contact as the man bent over to pull a vial of yellow, thick fluid out of the box, turning to him to await the next order.

"Tell me what it does," Peter ordered, just to make sure that he was pronouncing it right and Snape had not been lying to the Dark Lord somehow. The man had brought it up when they had been discussing a way to fake Severus's death in order to have him excused from his position as Hogwart's Potion's professor several weeks ago. Voldemort had been considering giving him more responsibility, but had instead decided that Lucius would be the better man for the job. Peter added hastily, "Tell the _truth._"

"…It…Hnh." Once more the willful man attempted to stop himself from obeying, but several moments later was overruled by the pain the curse inflicted on those that misbehaved. "It has…the effects of Polyjuice potion, but it takes a…year to brew, and…"

Yes, Snape had mentioned that as well. It was a dark potion that not many new about, and the professor—only at Hogwarts for two years and still working on his Mastery –had told the Dark Lord that it took a eleven months to brew but that he was sure that for a large sum, it could be purchased at _Borgin and Burkes_. In the end, Voldemort had still decided against it, telling Severus that he was more useful as someone that could keep a watchful eye on Dumbledore.

"…and it lasts for two weeks instead of only an hour. It—_ngh, _it also…maintains appearance even if the drinker is dead." Burke grit his teeth, his jaw straining even after he had told Peter the extent of it.

"G-Good…yes, _very _good."

Peter had to hurry.

He quickly took the potion from the man and deposited the hair he had gathered into it. He shook it a few times, and then handed it back to the man.

Aurors were busy on Halloween, especially in the war (though, he thought dubiously, the war was _over _now, wasn't it?), and Knocturn Alley was a place where the two nonfatal Unforgivables were cast from time to time, so it wouldn't be something to alarm anyone immediately. But if he hovered too long they would come eventually to collect him, especially after—

"Drink it."

Burke did.

With a heavy gulp and a dip in his thick throat, the man had downed it all, and within moments Pettigrew was standing over the small form of Harry Potter's doppelganger.

With that, he released the _Imperio, _and in the same breath squealed, trying not to look into those dreadfully vivid green eyes, "_Avada Kedavr_a!"

Oh god.

Oh _God, _what had he done to those _eyes?_

They were stony emeralds now, the boy truly looking like a broken doll splayed on the floor. Those eyes were never meant to be lifeless, and even though this was not Harry looking at him, his heart seized within him.

Shaking, he cast a hovering charm to put the boxes back in their place just as they were, vanished the vial, cork and Burke's clothes, then gathered the small, naked, limp form in his arms. Not a moment later, he apparated the third time that night back to Godric's Hollow where the scene was undisrupted. James still lie on the floor and the dark stain on the wall still told of Voldemort's demise.

He grabbed pajamas from the top drawer of little Harry's dresser, and tried to quell the sickening sensation in his stomach as he dressed him.

Tossing the small body into the bassinette, Peter winced at the thud it made. It had to look like he'd been flung with the force of the curse.

His heart was pounding in his chest so hard it hurt, but he had to stay calm, had to think. What else? What _else?_

Peter snapped his wand and tossed it onto the floor, so that no one would be able to tell that the last spell _he _had uttered was the Killing Curse. That wouldn't befit him—or at least it wouldn't befit who everyone would know him as.

Wizarding World's hero. The Gryffindor who fought valiantly to save his best friend and son, only to tragically fail.

The man who had survived _Avada Kedavra _like no other before him.

Harry, the real Harry, not the fake one in the crib that the world would burry soon, would remain his secret.

Peter lay on the floor, making sure to look like he'd been sprawled there by the curse, his wand breaking under him with the force of his weight.

Then he closed his eyes, smiling serenely and waiting for Lily to discover them.

_Finally._

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><p><strong>I'm quite proud of this AU, actually. Not many people explore Peter's personality as a person (dirt bag that he is) and it was difficult to write a chapter in his point of view, but it was necessary. In the next chapter, you'll find out what becomes of Harry. Please be patient—everything will be explained in due time, but since the next several chapters will be about Harry, we won't get back to Peter or the wizarding world for a bit. Please do note though that Peter's plans <strong>_**did **_**go rather well. If you caught any glaring plot holes, please tell me about them so that I may correct them. I feel that I thought this through rather well but I am human, and therefore could be mistaken. But please also be aware that it may be something that is just yet to be explained—like Sirius and Voldemort's wand. XD**

**Please be patient and stick with me through the following chapters. I am going to show Harry's growth as a person. Also, FEEDBACK MAKES ME A HAPPY PANDA (and makes me write faster, so maybe it makes you a happy panda as well?)**

**-Toes**


	2. Without

**Shifting Of The Plate**

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><p><strong>Chapter Two –<strong>_Without_

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><p>"Harry, eat your vegetables."<p>

Harry looked at the bright green broccoli and sighed. It was his favorite vegetable, that was for sure, and covered in cheese. Most everything Miss Charlotte made him was covered in cheese. It made almost everything yummier than it already was—except beets. Harry was fairly sure he'd never like those.

However appetizing the food would have usually been, the dark haired boy could not bring himself to eat it.

"This isn't like you," Miss Charlotte commented somewhat worriedly, her wrinkly hand coming across the small table she shared with him to press against his forehead. "You love broccoli and cheese."

Her hand was soft, the skin loose and easily movable on her bones. He'd asked her why her skin was like that while his was much suppler, once, and she merely smiled in a way that made her face look like an entire bag of wrinkles. It was a good look on the woman, whose brown eyes sparkled like a cruel thought had never run through her mind.

'That's because I'm an old bat, Harry, and you're a baby.' She'd told him rather easily. Harry hadn't liked being called a baby, because he'd been four at the time. He supposed now though, at the ripened age of almost-six, he had been a baby back then.

"What's wrong? Do you not feel well?" She asked him, a frown setting on her lips. Miss Charlotte didn't look nearly as normal when she wasn't smiling.

"No, I feel good." He could tell she didn't believe him. Harry ducked his head, which made his glasses slip down his nose. "H-Honest!"

"Perhaps not," She murmured, still peering at him dubiously, "You still haven't told me what _is _wrong."

"I…" Harry started, raking his small hand through his hair and then quickly putting it back in his lap. Fibbing was bad, Miss Charlotte had taught him that, but…

"Baby, tell me."

"M—M'not a baby." Harry defended himself weekly, looking up at her with wide eyes, "I'll be an old bat any day now, I _will_."

A smile cracked her face in two and the young boy's heart pounded, lowering his eyes again to his lap.

"Harry," She murmured, prompting the bespectacled child into speaking.

Harry clenched his eyes shut,

"You'll be mad," he whispered, fidgeting with the hem of his shirt.

"Oh, I highly doubt that, Deary." Her accent was light and crisp as she reached a dark hand forward again, this time clasping Harry's tiny hand in her own. His own light pallor seemed even paler against her coffee-colored skin, and he took a deep, shaky inhale.

"I….I broke something."

The woman blinked, but didn't seem angry. Miss Charlotte asked gently, "What did you break?"

"The…mirror, in the bathroom," He approached the words gingerly. The bathroom mirror was attached to the wall, large and taking up a great deal of space in the tiny bathroom.

"I see," She seemed surprised, and clueless as to how he could have managed such a thing. "How did you do that, Harry?"

"I—" Harry held his breath, and let the words tumble out of his mouth quickly, "_IdunnohowIdidit._"

The older woman took in the words and sorted them out, regarding Harry coolly and taking a deep breath. Fibbing was not good, Harry was aware of that, but he _wasn't._ She would think he was lying and hate him and give him back to the government. She never had before, she promised she never would. She often told him that he could call her 'grandma' if he wanted to, and that she would never send him back there if she could help it.

Until he was two and a half he'd been in halfway house, for boys that were in between foster families. He had come out of nowhere—papers had to be manufactured, he'd been given a last name –Owen, because when he had tried to repeat the word 'unknown' back at the nurse who had spoken it, 'owen' was the closest he could get—and eventually he had been taken to Miss Charlotte. He couldn't remember much about the halfway house he'd stayed in, only that it hadn't been wonderful like Miss Charlotte's apartment.

But now it was over. She would _hate _him for lying, because he didn't know _how—_

"What do you mean, you don't know how?"

"I…I don't know." Harry mumbled, looking at the hand grasping his as though expecting it to be yanked away from him at any moment, "I…I stubbed my toe on the tub and it really hurt. I—I fell down and I got angry, and I started crying and-I…the glass broked. I don't know why."

Tears of frustration stung his eyes as he stared down at the table.

"I…see." Miss Charlotte murmured softly, her thumb tracing over the back of Harry's hand. "When did you do this, Harry?"

"Erm…before supper." He confessed, admittedly just happy she had continued to hold his hand. "I—It means I'm weird, I know, I'm r-really sorry, I won't do it again—"

"Oh, Darling." The older woman stood up and moved around the table, pulling her foster child into her arms and hugging him tightly. Harry was surprised, but clutched at her waist happily.

He sniffed his stuffy nose; crying always made his nose run. "I won't do it again."

"I'm afraid you will, Harry."

Opening his eyes, the green-eyed boy tilted his head up and shook his head quickly, "No, no, I _promise—_"

"Listen to me," Miss Charlotte murmured, kneeling down on the floor in a fashion that Harry knew was hard on her knees. He was missing his left front tooth, but he dug the other one into his bottom lip as she took his face into her hands, cupping his cheeks tenderly, "You don't understand me. You'll do it again, and I'll be delighted about it. I'll tell you everything I know, though…although that isn't much. You're not _weird_. You're such a _special_ boy, Harry."

Harry's eyes went impossibly wide, "Wh—what?"

Another warm smile curled onto her mouth that made almost all of the apprehension that had knotted up in Harry's stomach fade away.

"You're a _wizard_, Harry."

* * *

><p>"You ever gonna play with me?" An annoyed voice whined from behind Harry's back.<p>

Curled up in bed, Harry ignored him and just curled into a tighter ball on the small bed he'd been given. Four other boys shared this room, the beds lining up across the room with only enough space in between them for small dressers with their belongings. Luckily, he'd gotten the bed at the far wall. He could face it and drown out the entire world, just get lost in the wood paneling and try not to think so much.

"_C'mon._ Mr. Damon's gonna be back soon and we won't _get _to play."

Harry still didn't answer him.

He heard a sigh of frustration and another set of footsteps, the door opening wider.

"Heck is wrong with him now?" The new voice, a girl this time, joined the first. Harry recognized her loud voice, unforgiving on his ears, and knew it was Bethany- was the oldest child on the farm and shared a room down the hall with two other girls around her age.

"Same as before, I guess. He ain't done nothing but stare at that wall for two weeks now whenever Mr. Damon leaves us alone."

"I saw his truck pullin' in, he'll be up here n'less than five minutes. You better start down, Tony."

"Aw _man_. It's so hot today, I don't wanna work."

"Well, it ain't like ol' Diana's gonna stick up for you."

"Nah, true 'nuff." Tony agreed, with a drastic sigh as he moved over to Harry and shook his shoulder, "C'mon, Harry, we gotta line up downstairs. Diana won't yell at you none but you already know Mr. Damon don't like misbehavin'."

Harry closed his eyes tightly, and winced as he did so, rolling over onto his back.

Beth whistled slowly as she looked at him, "Right shiner you got, kid. Must not be used to people that don't take no sass. Your grandma didn't use her hand on ya?"

Harry regarded her once his eyes opened, the left one only doing so half way. The bruise around his eye had reached its darkest color, as it had been delivered the day before, but he'd always been a quick healer. Not that he'd had that many injuries when he'd been with Miss Charlotte.

"Grandma?" Tony inquired, frowning as he looked back at the taller girl.

"His last foster mother, I guess. When he got here they said she died," The preteen girl shrugged and shoved her hand into the pockets of her jeans, ripped at the knee and sagging lower as she did so. She averted her eyes, as though guilty she'd said it so nonchalantly but unsure of how else to go about it.

Harry still dreamed of Miss Charlotte each night. She had passed away in the morning, falling to the floor while cooking pancakes for breakfast. There had been something in her brain, the doctor had told him, something that they couldn't have done anything for, that was a time bomb in her head that had just…gone off. Harry couldn't remember for the life of him what it had been called.

"Yeah? She didn't hit you for _nothin'?_" Tony asked, sitting on the edge of Harry's bed. He was only a year or so older than Harry, and had been with Mr. Damon and Diana for about three years now. He was a talkative sort, so Harry knew quite a bit about him.

Considering for a long moment whether or not he wanted to speak, he finally croaked out in a small voice, "No, never."

"So she was like Diana?" He asked, somewhat awed, "But without a Mr. Damon."

"She wasn't anything like Miss Diana," Harry said quickly, frowning and peering the freckled boy before him. His hair was curly and red, matted and not taken care of. Harry's was always messy too, no matter what he did with it, so he felt a slight kinship with Tony. "She would never just sit back and let anyone hit me. She woulda socked them back."

"Socked _?_" Tony gasped, as though he was both horrified and delighted by the idea.

Harry smiled, "Yeah."

"Man, that's cool. One time I dreamed that lock he keeps on the fridge flew off and smacked him right in you-know-where."

For a moment, Harry's eyes darkened. His first week here, before he had been subject to any of the pain, he had heard Tony call Mr. Damon a bad name. Tony liked to complain, but he didn't mean anything by it, but Danielle, a little blond girl a few years younger than Beth, had told on him. Mr. Damon had cornered Tony and demanded he admit it, and after only a few moments of vicious yelling Tony had confessed.

Mr. Damon had proceeded to knee the young boy in the groin hard, leaving him curled in a ball and crying, while Danielle had actually gotten desert.

Whispering softly, Harry said, "I could make that happen, Tony, I could, I could make it hit him –"

Beth's eyes widened and she hissed, shoving a finger to her mouth as she peered at Harry, "Don't say nothin' like that, kid, ever."

"You don't even know what I was gonna say!" She didn't know about his magic at all, not like Miss Charlotte had. Miss Charlotte said it was best if he didn't tell people, but he thought defending Tony might make it okay, especially against someone like Mr. Damon.

"No, just that it was about fightin' back. You ain't ever gonna fight back, if you know what's good for ya."

Harry sat up and glared down at the blankets. "What for?"

"Look, I was like you," She snapped, her coarse hair was tamed into a ponytail by oil and she shook her head, but her hair didn't move much at all. Her skin reminded Harry of Miss Charlotte's, but perhaps instead of just coffee, it was coffee with a cream in it. "I had parents, at least…till I was six and I came here. It's nice to remember them, but you gotta move on."

Harry's eyes widened and then twisted angrily shut, "I don't _wanna _forget about her!"

"Then you're _stupid!"_ Beth all but shrieked, "Life ain't gonna be easy for you no more, hear me? Mr. Damon don't take kindly to kids that don't do as he says. This ain't the worst place you could go. You get food, you get a bed, and if you work alright in the farm and keep your head down you don't get hit none. Ain'tcha learned your lesson?"

"How'dya know there are worse places? Seems pretty bad here to me," Harry argued softly, tracing the bruise around his eye with his fingertip.

"I…told them I wanted to be moved once back a few months after I first got here," She looked away and a deep frown set on her full lips. "Bad stuff happened there. Worse than here. We got it good."

Harry didn't believe her. This was not _good. _ He didn't argue with her though; the older girl was impossible to argue with.

"Usually he don't hit on the face," She sighed, "You shoulda eaten it."

Harry scowled, closing his eyes at the memory of what had occurred. "It was Jason's food. I wasn't gonna eat it in front of him."

"Jason is a troublemaker…he deserved it," commented Tony in a small voice. "He didn't do none of the gardening or nothing that day. Said it was too hot and just went to sleep on the dirt."

"You don't work, you don't eat," Beth snarled the same sentiment Harry had heard repeated by Mr. Damon at least a hundred times in the mere two weeks he was here.

"I know." Miss Charlotte had always told him stories about how hard she had worked after dropping out of school to get back to a place where she could fend for herself. Harry couldn't bring himself to do anything less than what she would have done. Working hard had not been the problem. Jason had decided to be lazy and laugh at the others while they worked, and at the end of the day, Mr. Damon had decided not to feed the hungry boy at all. He had smugly said that Harry was smaller than him and deserved the food that Jason did not. Then he'd forced the boy to sit at the table with the rest of them while his stomach rumbled….and Harry had refused to eat.

Mr. Damon had not liked that his hospitality was being denied.

He couldn't just sit there like that. He had known kindness only a month ago, and now he would suffer the summer with a couple that treated them like…like…

What had Miss Charlotte called them?

Oh, yeah.

_Slaves._

"_Where the hell are the rest of you!"_ An angry voice demanded from down stairs, making Beth and Tony jerk and look at each other fearfully. In the midst of their conversation, they had forgotten that they had seen 's truck pull in across the field. They were expected to be down stairs waiting for him when he walked in so that he could assign them their chores.

Tony and Beth jumped to attention and fled out the door so quickly that Harry would have missed them if he'd blinked. Not wanting to go hungry, or to add another bruise, he followed suit, jogging down the stairs to join them.

* * *

><p>"So, <em>Harry<em>, how long have you been here again?"

The young boy didn't like the way that the woman put emphasis on his name every time she said it. She seemed nice enough and just looking at her doughy form made him think of something soft and nice, she just spoke to him like he was a baby very pointedly.

"Three months, Mrs. Amos." Harry mumbled, shifting in his seat. It hurt to sit, but he didn't really want to give that away….not yet, anyway. He just crossed his legs so that the sore flesh of his bottom, from where Mr. Damon had beaten him with the leather of his belt the day before, would not have so much pressure put on it.

"And you celebrated your birthday here, right, _Harry?_" She looked down her file and nodded to herself, as though to make sure that she had remembered his birthday correctly.

"Yes, ma'am." Harry nodded, scratching at his shoulder where there was a bruise that was half done healing. He told her next the birthday that the pediatrician had estimated when he'd arrived at the hospital out of nowhere. "August 20th."

"Yes, yes, you turned seven, if I recall." She nodded, smiling gently and touching her white, permed hair as though thinking her next question through, "Did you have a good time? Did you get any presents?"

"Yes," Harry replied, and that wasn't a lie. Of course. Mr. Damon and hadn't gotten him anything, but Tony had drawn him a picture with blue and orange crayon (he'd found them months ago by chance and they were nearly worn down to nothing from use) on a piece of toilet paper. Harry kept it in the pages of the bible that Miss Charlotte had given him a long time ago, so that it wouldn't get messed up.

He'd seen his _caretaker _break things that were precious to some of the children when he didn't feel like hitting them.

"That…that's good, Harry." She seemed a little taken aback that he didn't want to expand on his presents. Cynthia Amos shook her head as the boy's circular glasses slid down his nose. "Now, Mr. Edgar explained to me that you've been having some behavioral problems. I was wondering if you'd like to talk to me about it, Harry."

At first he didn't know who she was talking about, but then he remembered vaguely that Damon's last name was actually Edgar, though all the kids called him by the title and his first name.

Frowning and looking down at his lap, Harry muttered, "Not really."

"I'd like to help you both come to an agreement, Harry," Mrs. Amos explained smoothly, "He says that he attempted to give you a haircut and you refused."

Harry paused, blinking. Is that what the man had told her?

"I…like my hair." He replied, not sure what to say. He couldn't tell her that he hadn't refused the haircut—in fact, he'd sat quite still for the man while he'd shaved all but about half an inch of hair off of his head. In the morning his hair had been the same as ever, the length brushing his ears in a choppy mess.

It had flabbergasted everyone in the household and angered Mr. Damon so much so that he had actually used his belt on him. Usually the man was fond of using his own limbs for hitting or pushing, so the belt was…new and the crack as it hit his flesh had echoed through the entire house until his bottom was swollen and red from the blows. Harry had been crying all night, and only when Tony had crawled into bed with him and hugged him had he managed to get to sleep.

"I see," She nodded understandingly as Harry shifted once more in his seat. "Harry, sometimes we don't like something that adults want for us. He also informed me that you've been staying up passed your bedtime at night and sometimes refusing to eat…"

Should he tell her about the bruises? Should he just _mention _that he'd like to be transferred? No, that would only anger Mr. Damon, and he might not be taken out right away. If he showed her the bruises, he would save himself the torment of staying here a day longer, but he'd…also be forcing the others out as well. Tony had made it clear, along with the others, that they didn't want to take the chance that they could go to a home worse than this one. Danielle, who everyone knew not to trust with secrets of any kind, had revealed that she thought that was _nice, _at least compared to what her older brother had done to her.

"I—I have nightmares." That was the truth, but he followed it with a lie. "And sometimes I'm not hungry."

Harry had made it his personal duty to take on several of the punishments that other kids had coming, as well as refusing to eat the extra serving of food that was taken from one child and given to him.

He decided to just…go without.

"Nightmares?" There was a light in her eye that said she was getting somewhere. "About what, _Harry_?"

Sliding his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Harry shrugged and mumbled, "Just about…stuff. Like …like Miss Charlotte."

"Oh," She looked sympathetic while casually flipping through her notes, "I remember, she passed of—"

"Brain any-izm." Harry had finally remembered the world that the doctor had used the day she had died. She'd dropped right before him, and Harry could remember the sound of the frying pan clattering to the floor, still sizzling.

"A wha—_oh, _a brain aneurism." Mrs. Amos murmured, nodding in a way that made the skin beneath her chin jiggle and the tight curls on her head bob slightly, "I'm sorry to hear that, Harry."

"Yeah."

"You called 999, though, didn't you, Harry? That was such a smart, _good_ thing to do."

"I know."

He quieted for several seconds after that. He had called an ambulance, but that hadn't _saved _her, had it?

After letting it settle for a minute or so, Cynthia started up again gingerly, "Even so, Harry, you need to do your best to follow the rules. I know you're still very sad about Miss. Charlotte but it's not very nice to misbehave. It makes things much harder for Mr. Edgar."

The raven-haired boy defended himself once more, "M'not misbehaving…m'not doing _nothing _wrong. Honest."

"Well, let me be honest with _you,_ Harry," She leaned forward as though to whisper, pursing her lips and saying in a kind voice in order to break it to him easy. "Mr. Edgar has asked that you be removed, Honey, that's why I'm here. That means you'll be taken out of this home and taken somewhere else. I might be able to talk him into keeping you, if you promise that you'll try to behave _really, really well._"

Harry blinked his eyes as he looked at her thoughtfully.

"Do you think you can do that? How does that sound?" Her voice grew slightly higher in pitch and her words became sloppier, as though she were talking to a very cute puppy.

"I…"

Harry paused, and then gathered up his nerve. He had to take a risk. He had to be sure there weren't better places to be before he settled for this. Surely, somewhere, there was someone as nice as Miss Charlotte?

Finally, the bruised child worked up the nerve to say, "I don't want to stay here."

Shocked, Mrs. Amos stammered, "W—what? Harry?"

"I…don't want to be here anymore. I wanna go somewhere else."

"Are…" She hesitated, eyes darting around as though looking for some other way to convince the boy it was not a good idea. "Are you _sure?_"

"Yeah," Harry nodded slowly, looking over to the doorway to the kitchen where he half expected Mr. Damon to appear, angry and snarling about how ungrateful Harry was. "I don't …wanna be here. You came to take me away, right?"

"Yes, but—" The old woman looked a little out of sorts. "You do realize you'll have to behave _anywhere _you go, Harry? Not just with Mr. Damon."

"I know," Harry replied, and added hastily. "I promise wherever I go I'll behave _so_ good."

"So _well_," Mrs. Amos corrected instinctively, shaking her head and sighing deeply. She closed the folder and packed it away into the suitcase she had with her. "You've only just started school, haven't you? The halfway house is close enough for you to attend the same one, but what if the next family that can take you _isn't?_"

Harry hadn't thought about that, but it hardly mattered, "I don't care."

For another moment, Cynthia was quiet, before sighing yet again so loudly it was almost a yawn, "I suppose there's nothing for it. Go ahead and pack your things, Harry."

It only took Harry all of five minutes to run up the stairs, stuff his clothes, shoes and the bible with the toilet paper picture from Tony in it into his suitcase. He hauled it down the stairs, his entire body still aching from the bruises, now even more so after having run around so much. The wheels of the case hit each of the step like a drum roll on the way down them, and he skidded to a stop in front of the woman, who still seemed to disapprove.

"Are you ready, then, Harry?"

"Um," He paused, then smiled sheepishly up at her, "Can I go say goodbye?"

Her own grin twitched on her mouth at his expression, and she nodded. "Go on then."

Harry rushed to the back door, and she followed suit, pausing when he saw them all playing on the rusty old swing set that was perched on just about the only piece of land that didn't have some sort of crop on it. The only time they got to play on the swing set was when Mr. Damon wasn't home or if a case worker was around.

He could spot them all, enjoying their window of play, spotting the skinny, straw haired figure of the children's tormenter by the shed. He was sweaty, the skin that was not covered by his overalls was slick and shimmering in the heavy beat of the sun. Harry could see the man, who looked rather oddly like a scarecrow and even walked in a lazy swagger that seemed like his legs were stuffed with hay instead of muscle. Harry would never have to see the man _again _and it brought a smile to his face.

Watching for another moment more as the man that had supposedly been his caretaker maneuvered around the equipment lying in the ground, an image came to Harry's mind.

A moment later, that image came to life, in the form of the hoe that the farmer was stepping over moving just were his foot planted, causing the angle of the hoe to catch on the toe of his shoe—ending in the metal rod to snapping up into a vertical position and hitting Mr. Damon in the face.

"GRAH!"

The cry of outrage pleased the dark haired boy, especially because the man would have no one to blame (and therefore no one to punish) but himself.

The children on the swings smiled at the display, but they managed to contain their laughter. Harry knew though that that such an incident would get them through several weeks of back breaking work.

"Harry!"

His bright green gaze flickered to the redhead running at him, the mussed curls bouncing as Tony made his way toward him. He only stopped a couple feet in front of Harry, making dirt kick onto his loafers with the force of his halt.

"Oh, sorry," Tony said, panting a bit, looking at the woman that was standing a couple yards behind Harry. "Mr. Damon said you're leaving. He was just playin', right? You ain't leavin'."

"Yeah," Harry told him, feeling rather bad all the sudden, speaking in hushed tones so Mrs. Amos wouldn't hear, "I gotta go, Tony, I _gotta_. You can come with me though, if you want to, I can just ask—"

"No, I ain't goin'," Tony huffed, fists clenching at his sides. Harry could tell he was tearing up. "I don't wanna. This place ain't so bad. You gotta stay."

"No," Harry sighed, shaking his head at the redhead, "I gotta go. I know you don't wanna but…I can't stay here anymore."

"But…" Tony groaned, frustrated, "But I'm gonna _miss_ you."

Harry nodded and rather abruptly pulled his friend into a hug. "I'll miss you too. Tell Beth goodbye for me. I don't wanna mess up their swing time."

Hearing him sniffle at his ear, the green-eyed boy felt his own eyes sting.

"Yeah, alright."

Harry paused for a long moment, but didn't let go of the other boy just yet.

"…Tony?"

"Yeah?"

"…You know what I did with my hair yesterday?"

"Oh, yeah, that was _wicked._ You said you don't know how you did it, though, right?"

"That's sorta true," Harry admitted, biting his lip, "But it's sorta not."

"What're you going on about?"

Hesitating another moment, the bespectacled boy tried to figure out what to say to make his crying friend feel better. He could hear the shifting of the woman's shoes against the dirt, which meant she was probably growing slightly antsy from the long goodbye, but he said one more thing before he released the older boy.

"Magic is real, Tony," Harry whispered it to him like the secret it was. "I hope you find it someday."

With that, he backed away and allowed the case worker to lead him to her car, turning awkwardly in his seatbelt as the house grew smaller until it was nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>No, Tony doesn't come back later on in the story. I'm pretty against OC's, especially in a fandom like Harry Potter where there is a ridiculous amount of awesome Canon Characters. The foster families are all important though, and after around chapter eight or so there will be no more Original Characters if I can possibly help it. There will be a little more about how exactly Miss Charlotte knew what Harry was mentioned briefly later on, but it's honestly not all that important. Also, since several of my friends missed it, Harry still had the blanket with him when Peter abandoned him, and 'Harry' was embroidered onto it. That's why his name is known to be 'Harry'.<strong>

**I'm so glad for the response I got. I responded to each one that I could 'review reply' to, I'm pretty sure. I would like to say a special thanks to an anonymous reviewer, Heather, for likening my style to Dean Koontz. He's been one of my favorite authors for a long time.**

**Thank you so much. Those who give me feedback are entitled to virtual cookies (and an author's love)!**

**-Toes**


	3. Quiet

**_Shifting of the Plate_**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Three –<strong>_Quiet_

* * *

><p><strong>Warning:<strong> Non-graphic but disturbing Child Abuse.

* * *

><p>The walls at 's Halfway House were too thin.<p>

It was the same place he'd stayed as a baby, but he would remember everything that occurred here this time, for the rest of his life. The other boys were fine, though he noticed that they seemed to follow a pattern. There were plenty of nice ones, a few smart ones, a few stupid ones, a couple bullies here and there…just like there was at school, just like there had been at Mr. Damon's house. Harry had lost too much weight during fasting at that house, and he was already shorter than most of the other boys his age, so he was subject to being oppressed more than most. He was used to that, Mr. Damon had made sure that such taunting slid right off of him, and even the older boys' punches were never as hard as the farmer's had been.

Harry could handle that.

He could even handle the fact that it had been marked down on his file that he was a troublemaker that had chosen to leave a 'perfectly good' home and therefore the most of the supervisors didn't think too much of him. He could except that there were no locks on the bathroom doors and that there were ten bunk beds to every room. Harry had gotten one in the back corner, once more against the wall, and he had gotten stuck with the bottom bunk. He didn't care too much about that, he wasn't one to complain and it wasn't like he was going to be here long, but…

What he could not handle was that the walls were too _thin._

He hadn't thought much of it the first two nights he was there, because he'd slept rather peacefully even though he was away from his first real friend. There was no waking up at six O'clock in the morning on the weekends here, though they still expected you to be up at a reasonable hour to eat some breakfast in the cafeteria.

However, on the fourth night, a nightmare had him gasping awake in the earliest hours of the morning. He had trouble getting back to sleep, and in the silence of the room, only disrupted by a few of the older boys snoring. Harry's bed was pressed right up against the wall, and on the other side of that wall lay the girl's room.

He had only caught a glimpse of it when he'd been shown around on his first day, but as far as Harry could tell it was completely symmetrical to the boy's room, from the location of the single window on the north wall to the placement of all ten bunk beds. The only difference was that there were about eight less girls than boys in the halfway house currently, so there were unoccupied beds, while every bed in the boy's room was taken.

Which meant that there was a bed just beside Harry's with only a wall to separate them.

He hadn't known what he'd been hearing that night when he'd awoken from his nightmare. He couldn't hear any words, just muffled noises that sounded like voices and the slight _tap, tap, tap_ a series of light collisions. Shoving his glasses onto his face, Harry had touched the wall, and sure enough there were slight vibrations that meant that meant the bed frame on the other side washitting the wall between them, over and over again.

"What…?" He had whispered to himself, frowning. Was there a pillow fight? Girls did that, right? Was that _giggling _he was hearing, then?

He'd awoken the next night to the sound of it again, supposing he'd become sensitive now that he knew it was there. He couldn't get back to sleep with whatever it was going on, and he could see by the light of the glow-in-the-dark clock that it was occurring after two in the morning, just about the same time it had occurred the night before.

_Tap, tap, tap…_

The sound that he had not been able to identified made itself clear in the form of a whimper.

She, whoever she was, she was….She was _crying._

The more he listened the more it took shape in his mind. She wasn't just crying, she was sobbing, for at least ten minutes straight at the same time. He supposed it wasn't so strange, except why would she the bed like that? Was it a cry for attention? Wouldn't it be _louder _if she wanted someone to hear her just so that they would come comfort her?

_Tap, tap, tap…_

It stopped, finally, and the bead creaked. Harry managed to get back to sleep after she had finally quieted. Something cold curled in his stomach as he shook the thought out of his mind and hoped he could sleep through it the next night. Each night he hoped he could sleep through it, but his mind, anticipating it, no longer let him.

Harry didn't know what she was going through, but his chest ached every night as he listened.

* * *

><p>A week into staying at St. Peter's and still every night it continued. Harry asked the other boys around if they had heard it and all of them claimed that they didn't know what he was talking about. But of course they didn't, because they were all fast asleep at that time of night, especially on school nights. He had looked every time he saw the girls to find some sort of hint of who it -whatever <em>it <em>was, if it was an 'it' at all- was _happening _to, but he learned quickly that it was very hard to find a girl alone. Ever. They stayed in groups, giggling and chattering on about one thing or the other, making it incredibly difficult for Harry to imagine any of them to be the crying girl.

After school on a Thursday he got off the bus and easily deposited his book bag onto the bed before debating on what to do next. He wanted to tell someone, he _had _to tell someone, someone that could do something about it.

The first person that popped into his head was the only adult that had been nice to him during his stay at the house, the evening supervisor, a young man that went by Jay.

Harry nodded to himself, thinking that telling him was a good decision. Everyone liked Jay; he was a charismatic, handsome, kind bloke fresh out of university, who was nice to all the kids no matter who they were. Heading out of his room and down the hall, he began his search for the man, finally finding him shooting hoops by himself on the cracked and unpainted basketball court outside. There were no nets on either of hooks, and one of them was too crooked to get a good shot in half the time.

Straightening out his school shirt, still slightly damp from recess at his elementary, Harry approached the boy before anyone else could. Most of the boys wanted to have a snack and go to the game room right after school, so at least he had that to his advantage. They wouldn't be bugging Jay for at least an hour.

Pale blue eyes flickered to Harry as he walked over, a large, crooked grin spreading across Jay's square jaw.

"Oi, if it isn't Harry Owen—whatcha up to? You wanna play some one on one?"

Harry really couldn't help but enjoy the fact that Jay talked to him like he was an adult. The brunette before him was an incredibly cool guy, everyone at the halfway house thought so, which made Harry feel both comfortable and awkward bringing up something so private.

"Um, actually I wanna talk to you."

Jay's thick eyebrows shot up.

Harry flushed and quickly added, "If—that's alright."

"Huh? What? Yeah, _sure, _it's more than alright!" He grinned brightly and moved to plop himself down on the bench, patting the spot next to him for Harry to sit down on, "C'mon and tell uncle Jay what ails you."

"Huh?"

"Er, tell me what's on your mind. What's wrong, that is."

"Oh," Harry felt his cheeks burn even more and let his fingers comb through his messy hair, "Well, I …I've been hearing something at night."

"Nightmares?" Jay guessed, looking intensely interested in Harry's plight.

"No," the younger boy disagreed quickly, before shaking his head, "Well, yes, sometimes, but that's not what I'm talking about really. It's something else. In the next room…um, the girls room, I mean."

Those ice blue eyes widened for a moment, before calming back to their usual narrowness. "I see. Er, well, what…kind of noise?"

"Well," Harry started off slowly, trying to find the words to describe it. He stumbled over his words quite a bit as he started, "Well, it's…like the bed is being pushed into the wall."

Through his dark bangs as he kept his head ducked slightly, Harry saw Jay's large hands clench a little tighter on the ball.

"How do you mean?" Jay asked nonchalantly, though the seven-year-old had to wonder if the man was angry with him, with how the vein in his neck seemed to pulse.

"It…sorta goes _bump bump bump bump..._. Not loudly, though. When I wake up in the middle of the night it's there. For like ten minutes or …maybe eleven, you know? Same time every night, too, and I can't sleep real well because of it," Harry started to explain again, tugging at his damp shirt so that it didn't stick to his skin so much. "One of the girls is crying too…"

"Is that so? You're sure it's not in your imagination?"

"Positive," Harry replied, nodding rather solemnly.

"Big word there, Harry," Jay praised him, ruffling the dark tresses that were piled thick and unruly on Harry's head. His glasses got knocked rather crooked on his nose and Harry smiled gently as he fixed them straight.

The second grader admitted coyly, "Learned it at school."

"Did you? You're a smart guy." Harry couldn't help but beam at that, because he certainly wasn't the best in his class when it came to grades, so it was nice to hear such a thing. "I never noticed before, Harry, but you've got a real neat scar on your forehead."

Touching the place where he knew his own scar was, he couldn't help but blush once more. He'd never thought it was cool before—just sort of part of him. He didn't know how it got there, but he'd never really seen the point in knowing. Miss Charlotte had never said much about it, if she knew anything, even when she told him about magic and why she knew about it. He grandfather had been a wizard, the only one in his family, who had attended a wizarding school, but after he graduated he'd married a normal person, and none of his children or grandchildren had been wizards after him. Vaguely, Harry wondered if his parents had been wizards, or if they'd been normal.

He realized suddenly that he'd gotten off track.

Shaking his black head of hair, he continued, "So I was wondering if you could… ask the girls about it? I don't know what to say, but she sounds so scared and sad…"

Frowning deeply, Jay sighed and shook his head, "I wouldn't worry about it. Girls cry, Harry, it's not a big deal, especially the girls _here_. They had _scary _and _sad _lives before they came here. Didn't you?"

Harry felt his stomach drop. He hadn't expected this. He'd wanted the other to help him—why would someone as nice as Jay be so dismissive? "Y—Yeah, I guess…but—"

"No buts, Harry, this is silly," Jay stood up and tossed the basketball from where he sat toward the hoop, and it entered the circle of metal with a neat sound, passing through it cleanly and bouncing a few times before rolling somewhere near the center of the court. "I don't want you bothering anyone else with this. I'm a good guy, so I'll stand for it this once, but if you try to bring it up to the other supervisors, they'll think you're _stupid._"

The word hit Harry like a slap to the face. He knew, because he'd felt those before, but this hurt even more. It echoed somewhere in his ribcage and made his stomach twist within him.

Hadn't Jay just called him smart a moment ago?

What was with this sudden change of personality? Harry was just trying to _help, _what was Jay acting like this?

Jay met him with a steady stare for a long moment, all humor and amiability gone from his face. Suddenly he didn't look so handsome anymore, and his blue eyes were no larger charming, but cold and pinning Harry into place where he sat.

"Understand me?"

Swallowing thickly, the child nodded, "Y-yes."

"Good." Jay muttered just as severely, before his face abruptly twisted into that same old disarming grin that he gave to every person that walked through St. Peter's halls. "Try to get to sleep before two in the morning, yeah, kiddo?"

He walked away without another word, leaving Harry in the blistering heat, feeling colder than he'd ever felt before even in the middle of winter. He felt like throwing up for some reason, but he couldn't quite figure out why. He still didn't know why a girl was crying, or what the thudding of the bed meant, or –

How Jay had known that it happened at two in the morning when Harry had never specified the time.

All he knew was that something was wrong and that he could not remember feeling more sick to his stomach than he did right now. He wanted to scream, or vomit, or punch something, but all he could do was sit there and stare at the retreating back of the young man that he had thought would help. Instead, he had made Harry feel impossibly worse about the entire situation. Something was happening to a girl, he didn't know who she was and he didn't know what was occurring, just that it was …horrible, whatever it was. And that Jay was somehow a part of it.

That night when it began again, Harry cried with her.

* * *

><p>After two months in St. Peter's, Harry found himself in the home of a new family. The home was in a suburb, the houses all neatly kept and similar in shape and color, nicer than anything Harry had ever seen before in his life. Except for, perhaps, on the telly, but it was much nicer in person. The grass was crisp under his feet and he felt bad for walking on it, noting that there was a neat section of the yard devoted to flowers and rows of pulled soil that Harry recognized from his days on the farm.<p>

Would he be expected to work in the sun here as well? At least it was much smaller than the acres that Mr. Damon had them work on.

A man that Harry had never met before had driven him here, and when the door opened he lead him inside and introduced him to a very tall couple. Harry took them in hesitantly, eyes first on the striking figure of the woman, slim and tall with rich brown hair falling in waves just passed her shoulders. Her eyes were brown and appeared to be tender, her tiny hands clenching slightly as the door shut behind him. According to the man who had accompanied him from St. Peters, her name was Talia Lincoln, and the man standing beside her was her husband, Richard Lincoln. The man was older than the woman, with smile lines wrinkling around his eyes and mouth, with hair a few shades lighter than his wife's, with specks of grey shimmering in his neat tresses. He was smiling too at Harry, and all of the friendliness was…nice, even if it might only be a show for the case worker behind him.

He shifted, wondering if he should introduce himself to them, since the man hadn't told them his name. The lady beat him to it, however, stepping forward and speaking in a voice so soft and warm that he couldn't help but want her to read bedtime stories to him.

"You must be Harry! I've been so excited ever since they told me you were coming in," The woman bent at the knee, kneeling down in order to meet Harry's eyes. He blinked, not sure how to respond to it.

"I—yes, I'm Harry." He replied, his hand shifting on the handle of his suitcase. "It's…nice to meet you."

"Oh, _Richard_, look at how polite he is. Isn't he the sweetest?" Talia spoke as she looked at Harry, her eyes reminding him of honey. He felt himself blushing at the compliment and lowering his eyes to avoid the persistent eye contact.

Something gold caught his eye, the shimmer of the necklace around the woman's neck. A delicate golden chain hung around her long, slender throat and at the end of it was a simple little shape that Harry recognized.

"Hey," He said suddenly, resisting the urge to reach out and touch it. "I know what that is. It's a cross, right? I have a book with that on it."

From a few feet behind his wife, Richard's watery green eyes lit up. "Do you?"

"That's wonderful, Harry," Talia murmured, running a hand over Harry's shoulder and up to touch his cheek. "You're a smart boy. Have you read any of it?"

"Erm," Harry hesitated, feeling bashful as he admitted, "Only a little, because it's hard."

The smile on Richard's scruffy face widened as he chuckled.

"That's quite alright, you know. Perhaps after you get settled into your room tonight, I'll read some of it to you," Talia offered, brushing some of his hair out of his eyes. Her eyes moved up to his forehead, and he knew what she much be looking at. His scar was usually hidden behind his thick fringe of dark hair, but every once in a while he was questioned about it.

Talia's eyes simply moved back down to hold his gaze as she asked, "What do you say?"

"Yeah," Harry paused another moment, gaze flickering up to the quiet man behind him who had done little else other than stand there and tell the young boy their names.

"Great, I'd be honored," Talia declared, standing back up rather fluidly after bending in her position. She didn't move anything like Miss Charlotte did, but she also didn't really have any wrinkles either, save some very slight lines at the corners of her eyes, but Harry rather liked those.

"I…get my own room?" Harry asked after a moment, remembering what she had told him. 'Get you settled in _your _room'. He hadn't had his own room since he'd been with Miss Charlotte almost six months ago, and that seemed…so far away.

Talia took in his question as though surprised by it, before nodding, "Yes, of course. We have it all set up for you. They told us about you yesterday morning and I spent all _day_ shopping."

Shopping? For him? That was…a far cry from anything that had ever happened at the farm. Miss Charlotte had always made sure he had what he needed, but she lived in a small apartment, worked a steady but underpaid part time job and couldn't afford too much of the extra stuff…though she had been promising him a trip to an amusement park for his seventh birthday, before she'd passed.

"You're their first child," the caseworker offered informatively.

"Oh," Harry replied, shifting his feet and feeling…he didn't know what exactly. He liked that he was their first child but it was also a little intimidating. They seemed so…perfect. What if they decided they didn't _like _him? "So I'm the only kid here?"

"Oh no, not at all!" Talia giggled, patting him on the shoulder.

"We have two girls of our own," Richard explained to him easily, his deep voice just as pleasant as his spouse's, though in a fashion that reminded Harry instead of a cat, a low purr that was soothing on his ears. "Their rooms are just down the hall from yours, but they're in bed already. You'll be able to meet them in the morning."

Harry suddenly scrutinized the man before him, nodding vaguely in response even as his eyes narrowed.

Was this man like Jay? Would Harry have to listen to the girls cry in the next bedroom every night? He didn't know if he would be able to sleep alone _anyway,_ after two months of his sleep being interrupted by those horrible sounds. But if he had to go through that here as well, he didn't know what he would do. The thought made him sick to his stomach, but before he could linger on the morbid thought any longer, the lady was speaking once more.

"It's late," Talia said suddenly, interrupting Harry's worries as she easily took Harry's suitcase from him. He didn't want to part from his things and it took him a moment to realize she was just carrying it for him, not taking it away. "Come, I'll show you to your room."

"…Yeah, okay." Harry muttered gently, lowering his eyes to the hardwood floors. He cast a glance at the man behind him, who nodded at Harry and straightened his coat as though he was readying himself to leave.

He turned away, heart clenching as he turned away from the man that was his only escape. The young boy didn't know yet if this would be another place where he would have listen to someone's pain with no way to stop it, but if he did, this time he would find a way to stop it. Jay had terrified him with threats but he never wanted to feel that helpless again…If those girls cried in the middle of the night, he swore to himself he would bust through the door to find out what horrors were being committed and _save her from them._

"Do you like your room?"

The voice seemed to come out of nowhere, though he had known consciously the woman was still beside him. Somehow he had arrived at the top of the stairs and continued down the hall without realizing it, coming to stand in an open doorway.

He blinked away the blurriness from his eyes and took in the room that he'd been staring at but not really seeing for several seconds.

"This is mine?" Harry asked rather breathlessly, rooted to the spot, afraid to back away from the room before him and hesitant to step any closer.

Before him was a room the same size as the one he had shared with three other boys on the farm, there was a television on one end and a large cozy armchair facing it several feet away. Not far from the chair was an oak bookshelf with only a few books on mostly bare shelves, beside it a matching bureau and a large colorful toy box in the shape of a castle. There was a rug then, black with the solar system on it as well as flecks of stars, all of which seemed to be glow in the dark, leading to the coolest bed Harry had ever seen. It was a loft bed, bright red in color and built off the ground, attached to the wall high enough for the even the woman herself to walk under it comfortably. There was a ladder on the side that Harry would have to climb to get into it and beneath the bed there sat a wooden desk and a red plastic desk chair, half hidden like a bat cave beneath a curtain hanging from the bed.

It was the coolest room Harry had ever seen.

Even as he thought that, he felt guilty for it. Miss Charlotte had given everything she could, and though it was nothing compared to all of these fancy items it had been perfect at the time. Remorse twisted in his gut, because even now with the awareness that this room shouldn't have put Miss Charlotte's to shame, he was captivated by it all. He'd never seen such nice things—and this was supposed to be _his?_

"It's sort of empty, I know," Talia offered quietly, placing a thin hand on Harry's back to lead him further into the room, "We weren't sure what kind of things you liked to do…if you like sports, or drawing, or music…So over the next week or so while we get to know you, we'll add more."

"More?" He swallowed thickly, watching as she brought his suitcase over to the dresser and carefully started unpacking his things into the dresser drawers.

"Yes, of course." She smiled, frowning at his clothes and stating, "We'll have to get you more of these…you have an entire dresser and closet, and only a few things to wear…"

She made a sound of disapproval with her tongue against her teeth.

Ducking his head, the child mumbled in response. "Er, sorry."

"Oh, it isn't your fault, Harry," Talia replied quickly, setting the bible on top of the dresser when she was done and tucking the suitcase into the closet. Harry wondered briefly if that meant he wouldn't need it again anytime soon…but he dared not get his hopes up. "You don't have any pajamas?"

"Er, no, not really…I usually just sleep in what I where that day." Harry shifted, feeling his ears burn in embarrassment at the question. _Should _he have pajamas? He'd always had them as a child, but he couldn't take all his things with him from place to place, and sleep clothes had never seemed very important.

"That won't do," Talia shook her head once more as she took his small hand, leading him to the latter. "We'll worry about that tomorrow. For now, let's get you in bed."

Harry nodded gently, climbing up the rungs and sitting on the edge. He was surprised when without notice Talia began to unfasten his shoe ties and then proceed to peel off his socks as well for him.

"There you go."

"…Thanks." He whispered, pulling the covers over himself as she seemed to start away. However, she didn't turn to the door like he'd expected. Instead, she returned to the dresser, where she plucked the bible off the table and came over to him with a wide, toothy grin.

"Did you think I'd forgotten?"

Rubbing at his eyes, he nodded truthfully.

Her eyes softened and she replied gently, "We take religion very seriously in this house, Harry. I'm so happy that you already have an interest. I think you'll get along just fine here. I'd love to read a little of this holy book to you each night, if you let me."

Slowly, taking in the response, Harry nodded yet again.

"Wonderful," She smiled, pulling the desk chair out a few feet so that Harry could still see her when he nuzzled his face into the soft, fluffy pillow. "Shall I start anywhere in particular?"

Pausing with thought, the raven haired boy just mumbled, "The…beginning would be okay."

Talia smiled and found her way to the page, pages that were so thin and delicate Harry often had trouble flipping them on his own. This woman, however, seemed to be practiced at it, thin manicured fingers moving deftly before settling at the very front.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth…"

Her voice was even more pleasant than he thought it would be.

* * *

><p><strong>Religion will be a very small part of my story, spanning pretty much only this chapter and the next. Please do not let anything the characters do (or believe in) upset you. I'm not a religious person, but I am fond of many people that are and I find religion fascinating. I am portraying characters, one who happens to be fanatical, while the other is merely devout. That doesn't mean that I think all Christian people believe in the same thing, and I hope I manage to get that across in how I write this family. I just don't want to offend anyone.<strong>

**With that out of the way, I would like to know what you thought about this chapter. It was obviously quite heart-wrenching—and I'm sorry for that. This story will be sad for quite a while…Harry isn't Harry without being tragic, I don't think. Eventually things will get better for him, but expect it to get worse before it gets better. Feedback is what I see in the mirror of Erised -so give a girl a break, yeah? ;) Thanks!**

**-Toes**


	4. Fracture

_**Shifting of the Plate**_

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><p><strong>Chapter Four –<strong>_Fracture_

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><p>"Give it <em>back.<em>"

"What if I don't want to?"

"Don't matter. It's not yours."

"Who says? We both have one, and they look just alike."

"Yeah, but yours has a _scratch _on it!"

"No, it doesn't!"

"Does too!"

"You're the one that wore it to climb a tree!

"It's my headband, and I want to wear it to church!"

"You only want to wear it because _I'm _wearing it!"

"No! You just stole it from me so I want it _back._"

"You can't make me. I'm wearing it."

"I'm…I'm going to tell Harry!" cried the smaller of the two girls, eyes beginning to brim with frustrated tears. They stood in the hallway just outside the bathroom they shared, both dressed from head to toe in frilly dresses, pantyhose and shiny shoes.

"Why do you always have to go telling Harry on me!" shrieked the second girl, pushing the pink plastic band with a large fake flower on the side back onto her head and trying to straighten her long brown hair, which had gotten ruffled when the smaller girl had attempted to yank it off. "Who says he's going to take your side anyway?"

"Because Harry likes me better, _der,"_ responded the first, turning on her heel and clenching her small fists at her sides as she cried out in a shrill voice, "Harry! Mary is being mean to me again!"

"What! No I'm not!" Mary called just as loudly, grasping her sister's arm. Realizing that clutching at the other girl would do nothing to take back the words, she instead screamed her own rebuttal. "Harry, that's not true! Sarah is just trying to get me in trouble again!"

"Am not!"

"You are _too._"

"Nuh uh!"

"C'mon! Can't you two get along at least till I get dressed?" Harry asked, peeking out from his bedroom door, mostly dressed except for the absence of a tie around his neck. Not that he was particularly fond of the noose, but Richard had told him repeatedly that he didn't look half as dashing without it. He walked out into the hallway, sighing as he peered between the two girls. "You're both beautiful. What's the problem?"

"I'd look beautifull_er _if I had my headband," Sarah declared, stomping her foot into the wood.

"_Beautifuller_ isn't even a word!" replied her sister, glaring and crossing her arms over her chest.

"'Course it is! How else will people be able to say I'm beautifuller than you?" Sarah inquired, sniffing. Harry sighed and came forward, smiling and tugging on a strand of Sarah's hair playfully.

"Be nice to your sister. She's your twin, you should be close." Harry stated, smiling between them and peering down at the shorter girl who gripped his arm tightly.

"We don't looking anything alike though," Mary muttered, glaring at her sister, who seemed to be hogging Harry.

What she said was certainly the truth. Mary was taller, willowy and olive skinned with brown hair the same shade as her chocolate brown eyes. She had kept much of her mother's attributes, while Sarah's hair was a lighter brown, highlighted with blond and her eyes were a pale green that she had not gotten from her mother or her father. She was also much more petite than her sister or parents, the top of her head coming beneath Harry's chin even though the pair of them were only seven months younger than Harry. He was now eight and a half, and in a month the girls would be joining him in their eight year, though he took pride in the fact he would always be ahead of them.

"That's because you're _fraternizing_ twins," Harry stated knowingly, reaching forward to grasp Mary's hand and tug her toward the stairs.

"It's _fraternal,_" Mary corrected, grinning.

"You still haven't gotten her to give me my headband back." Sarah muttered, once more turning her pale eyes on the form of her sister in annoyance.

"You know you look great without it." Harry told her simply, making the young girl blink and blush.

"Yeah?"

"Definitely." Harry reassured.

"Hear that, Mary?" Sarah smiled smugly, tugging on Harry's arm in an attempt to drag him down the stairs with her, "I don't need a stupid flower headband to look pretty."

Startled, Mary seemed to rock back on her heels for a moment, before ripping the band out of her dark hair and tossing into the bathroom without a second thought. "Well—_I _don't need it _either._"

"Sure you do."

"I do _not_ need it."

"Sure, you can have it, I'm pretty enough on my _own_."

"I'm _just_ as –"

The argument continued in the back seat the entire way to the church with Harry in the middle, as he always was, shared between his two foster sisters. He didn't mind so much, not matter how irritating it got for them to be bickering in his ears; they were his family at this point. He figured it came with the territory.

The smooth leather was cool against his neck, tugging his coat around himself tighter until the heat had spread throughout the entirety of the car. Talia and Richard were talking about something that had been reported on the News that the young boy had very little interest in, so instead he watched the light morning snow that had begun to cling to the windows, though it had not yet begun to blanket on the ground. December was creeping up on them, and Harry was looking forward to it. He still remembered the last Christmas and how utterly fantastic it had been. He'd never experienced something so wonderful, and it wasn't just about the presents—though there had been plenty of those.

Christmas with the Lincolns had been warm, spiritual and it was the first time he'd felt wanted in a long time.

It had been over a year since he had come to stay with the Lincolns and the winter holidays were coming up quickly. Memories of life before the couple had not faded entirely, not even a substantial amount, but his nightmares were rare and he knew well enough now to know Richard was a much better man than Jay. He could be distant, but he abhorred seeing his little girls cry just as much as Harry did.

Talia could be very…enthusiastic, especially about things concerning their religion, but she had yet to be anything but kind and doting to Harry. He still didn't know what he believed; religion seemed like a concept much too foreign to him, but he enjoyed the sense of community that it gave him. He belonged to something, and not just the secret community Miss Charlotte had once told him existed, but something real…something he could be part of every Sunday morning and Wednesday night with his _family._

He felt so miraculously normal.

Piling out of the car in a flurry of frills, the twins scurried across the street with their mother trailing after them in an attempt to catch their hands. Sarah, the more athletic of the two, ran farther ahead and toward the doors as Mary's small hand was wrapped up in her mother's. Harry stayed back with Richard as Talia called to Sarah as she ran around, enjoying stringing her mother along and always staying just out of the adult's reach.

"You forgot your tie, Harry," Richard told him suddenly, and Harry looked down at himself, going pink when he realized that it was true.

"Oh. I'm sorry—I got distracted." He admitted bashfully, shuffling his feel against the pavement as they passed several automobiles in a huge parking lot full of them. They were going to be late, especially if Sarah continued to delay them like this. Harry could see already through the glass doors that everyone had already filed out of the lobby and into the sanctuary.

"It's alright, I heard their argument. They aren't quiet about their disputes," his foster parent nodded, the hand on the back of his neck gently leading him to the door warm in contrast to the frosty air. "You're great at diffusing the two of them."

"They shouldn't fight so much," Harry replied, watching as Talia huffed and started yelling over the church bell as it signaled loudly that the service had begun. It wasn't a real church bell, however, just the recording of a bell played over the intercom. The church they attended was huge and modern, with over two thousand members, half of which attended services regularly and almost a quarter of them tithed a full ten percent of their income. The Lincolns were part of that quarter and Richard, a surgeon, was thought highly of in the community for his charity work.

Harry tried not to think about the fact that he was most likely just part of the couples benevolence. He liked to think he had become more to them than just that—besides, Richard had once confessed to him that he'd always wanted a son.

A blur of pink fabric raced passed Harry and Richard, then through the front door a moment later.

Following her was Talia, who paused to catch her breath as she glowered at her husband, "Thank you so much for your help."

"Oh, Darling, you know I have a bad knee," retorted the man. It took Harry a moment to realize that he was teasing her.

Talia rolled her eyes, "And I'm wearing _Prada heels._"

"You are." The doctor responded, as though impressed. "They must have been expensive. Whoever bought them for you, my Dear?"

Annoyance flickered in her eyes, and with a toss of her long, neatly curled hair, Talia was walking through the front doors and pulling Mary along with her.

"We're missing the _service._"

"It's two hours long; I don't think we're missing much." Richard pointed out with a smirk as he held the door open for Harry, who was watching the interaction amusedly. Though decidedly more withdrawn than his wife, Richard held a tenderness in his eyes that Talia only expressed rarely. It had taken him a while to see past his somewhat distant demeanor, but watching them talk like this, arguing almost playfully in their equally pleasant voices, Harry felt at peace. He rolled his eyes when he saw that Sarah had immediately abandoned her coat and scarf on the floor of the foyer carelessly.

"I don't care, I don't want to miss _any _of it—_Sarah Michelle Lincoln, get down from there!"_

Harry jumped at the tone that his foster mother's voice had taken on, a strained sort of quiet that echoed more vigorously against the high ceilings of the elegant lobby than any shout would have.

"But I wanna _touch_ _it_!"

The 'it' that Sarah clamed to want to touch was a large, beautiful mirror that hung fifteen feet up a wall practically on the second story of the church. Below the mirror was a wall decorated with a brick fireplace, jagged and meant to look ancient with large beige stones jutting out here and there and an electric fire brewing in its depths. The fireplace was surrounded by expensive Victorian couches and chairs with high backs and delicate arms, and in the center of it, close to the stoop that surrounded the fireplace, was a glass coffee table.

Sarah had managed to climb up the uneven brick and up onto the mantle, and was currently lifting her leg to secure her tiny foot into the crevasse of another stone to get higher.

"I don't care if you want to touch it, I said _get your arse down here!"_

Harry's eyes widened. He had never heard Talia speak like that, nothing so frantic and vulgar had ever passed through the normally couth woman's mouth.

Richard now took the initiative as well, stepping forward, "Listen to your mother. Get down before you _hurt_ yourself."

"But David touched it! He said last week he climbed the wall and he said I couldn't because I'm a _girl._"

Harry frowned and looked up at her, moving to the side but not approaching too closely, lest she climb even higher just to get away, "But you know he's wrong, don't you? David's a git."

"Yeah, but—"

"Get. _Down!"_ Her mother's voice took a shrill edge to it while Richard rubbed his temples as he tried again calmly.

"Please, Sarah, you're being _ridiculous._ Get down from there this instant."

"You're being _stupid!"_ Mary spoke up from beside her mother, obviously suffering her Talia's death grip, if her expression was anything to go by.

"I'm not _stupid!"_

"No one said you were," Harry began to placate her, but Mary cut him off.

"I did."

Harry shot her a look and she looked sheepish briefly before tucking her free hand under her opposite arm, giving an expression that said rather bluntly 'I will not apologize'.

"I told you to _get down _or I will _come up there to get you _and you will _not _like the results!"

"Sweetie, listen to Mummy, she just wants you to be safe—"

"But I want to touch it! I want to tell him that I can do it! I can!"

"We believe you, but you don't have anything to prove to that little boy. He probably didn't even touch it himself."

"He did! I said he did, and I want to too!"

"_I'm coming up there—_"

"No, I—" Sarah began to turn as though to prove to her mother that she was planning on making her way down, but as she did so one of her hands slipped. Her grip on the wall with her other hand wavered under the weight without a second hand to hold her up, and she felt back. In a second she was falling with a shrill scream back –

-toward the glass coffee table beneath her.

"_Oh my God—"_

"Sarah—!"

The two adults pitched themselves forward, but it happened so quickly that they didn't have time to make it to her and Harry didn't have time to think. His heart wrenched and his gut felt like a cold fist had suddenly squeezed and squished his innards within him. She could die, she could _die, _or at least be badly injured, and if he could help and did nothing to stop it, didn't even try—

Suddenly his ears were filled with loud, familiar crying. The sound of the girl from St. Peter's was in his ears, louder than he had ever heard her through that wall.

Harry would never forgive himself if he let Sarah become that girl who he had failed to protect.

He would never remember if he meant to use his magic or if it was on pure instinct. He had all but forgotten about what he could do over the past year, so he was convinced it was the latter, but just before Sarah hit the table to smash it, and perhaps her skull as well, into a thousand pieces…she just stopped.

In midair, she hovered there, trembling and half curled up into a ball.

Richard and Talia halted several feet from her, staring at the sight of it as Harry stood there, quivering with the use of his magic, hands outreached and his fingers bent as though he had been frozen in place halfway through making fists.

"What…"

He didn't know who had said it, or even if that was all they said, but soon four sets of eyes were on him. Gently, he released whatever it was he had been holding and Sarah was lowered the last few inches onto the coffee table. Her mother rushed forward to clutch Sarah to her chest, shoulders heaving. Mary was wide eyed and disbelieving, while Richard simply stood there like a he had turned to stone.

"What—what the _hell?_" Talia broke the tense silence in a whisper that was laced with the same frantic edge it had had when she'd first seen Sarah climbing the wall.

"I…I don't…know how I did it." Harry started to explain, but the woman cut him off.

"_You did it?_ What was _that? _It—that-what _are _you?" She demanded, looking at him in a way he had never seen her look at anyone.

"Calm yourself, Talia, I…" Richard spoke up, clearing his throat and glancing toward the heavy doors many yards away that led to the sanctuary. No one had heard them. The doors were almost entirely soundproof, and besides, he was sure that the band was too loud for anyone to have heard the commotion. "There must be some sort of explanation."

"Well, if so, he should _spit it out._" His wife snapped, more at her husband's forced calm in the face of such a phenomenon, than at Harry. She held out her arm to Mary, who rushed to her to help embrace the now crying Sarah.

"I—I don't know how I did it," Harry repeated softly, eyes tearing up. That cold sensation in his stomach was back, something that he related to rejection. It had happened when Miss Charlotte had died, the first time Mr. Damon had hit him, when he'd attempted to talk to Jay at the halfway house…and now, _here._ "I just wanted to…to save her, and it …it just happened."

"Things like that don't just—"

"Talia!" Richard suddenly cut her off. The green eyed boy couldn't remember the last time, or _any _time, that the man had spoken to her in such a voice. She usually wore the figurative pants in the family, her husband simply going along with whatever she deemed appropriate, necessary or _right._ "Sarah is alive, that's all that matters…We don't even know if Harry did it."

"He just _said_ he did," She hissed, though there was doubt in her eyes.

"He's a boy, Talia," replied her husband gently, peering at Harry. "This was…impossible. But it happened—who is to say that Harry was the one to do it at all? It was a _miracle_."

"Yes." She admitted, seeming only half appeased with the "But—"

"But _what?_" He turned to her, straightening up his posture smoothing his hand over his hair. "I shouldn't _matter _how he did it, or if he was the one to do it at all…at least not right now. For all we know, it could be an act of God."

Talia paused, her gaze flickering to Harry cautiously. "…Yes, yes, I suppose it could be."

Harry decided then that it would not be a good idea to let them know that he had been able to make things like that happen since he could remember. That he was something called a wizard and that magic was real…they wouldn't like that. He would hide that part of himself for as long as necessary, if it meant they would continue to love him.

"Let us go enjoy the service now," Richard said quietly, holding out a hand for Harry and giving the boy a reassuring smile.

Harry took it, and they sat together that Sunday in the pews, and for several Sundays after that, like a family.

But none of them looked at him the same way they did before that incident ever again.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm terribly sorry for how short this chapter is, but I felt doing any more for this chapter would be too much. Thank all of you so much for your lovely reviews. I've responded to all of them, I believe, except for those that are anonymous or have disabled messaging-but I would like to give a huge thanks to you as well!<strong>

**All of the OCs are, unfortunately, necessary for my story...but there will only be two more chapters of them! After that, canon characters all the way! Also, to make up for the horrendous shortness of this chapter, I promise to update the next one the day after tomorrow to make up for it. See how nice I am?**

**Questions, comments, concerns-Feedback is my anti-drug. And really, do you want a junkie on your conscience? xD**

**-Toes**


	5. Strangers

_**Shifting of the Plate**_

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><p><strong>Chapter Five -<strong>_Strangers_

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><p><strong>Warning: <strong>Child Abuse.

* * *

><p>Spring had come around more quickly than Harry had anticipated, though he certainly did not mind the warmth. It made the large backyard behind the Lincoln's home all the more green and welcoming.<p>

Harry was currently kneeling in the soil not far from the slide and swing set that his foster sisters so loved to play on. Inside, Talia was currently hosting a Girl Scout's meeting which the girls were attending, and because Harry was not a girl and had no interest in being surrounded by them, he was outside caring for his garden.

It was merely a three foot by three foot patch of ground filled partially with flowers that Harry was working on. The summer before, when Talia had introduced him to their small gardens (Mary and Sarah both had a section of their own as well) Harry had been skeptical.

Life on the farm was not a memory he was fond of, after all.

But after having planted his first seeds and carefully watering them each day, he felt a sense of accomplishment when he saw the beauty of what he had birthed sprout from the ground. Sunflowers, he had decided, were his favorite.

Beside him was the next door neighbor's cat, Mickey, who was sunbathing in the grass. Wiping at his forehead with the back of his gardening gloves, he grinned at the fat tabby.

"What do you think?"

The cat's thin ears twitched, but other than that, he didn't move.

"Thank you," Harry replied, because he liked to think that a flick of the ears was a compliment. "Richard says I have a green toe."

He paused, thinking over his own words. It didn't sound quite right to him, _a green toe, _and he had a feeling he'd misquoted the man, though a correction did not come to mind abruptly.

"I don't think it's as nice as Talia's though," Harry admitted with a sigh, shifting to sit with his legs crossed and tossing the shovel to the side.

Maybe he would just play. It wasn't too warm outside, and the evergreen tree shaded most of the swing set even if it had been. But he felt somewhat listless, sitting alone in the sunshine…well, perhaps not entirely alone, Mickey reminded him with a wiggle of his tail.

Life had continued almost as usual through the winter months. Christmas had been pleasant, as had New Years and even the religious Holidays that had come thereafter. But something was…missing from the interactions with Harry's surrogate family. Mary and Sarah no longer fought over him and seemed instead to grow closer to each other, unconsciously drifting away from their foster brother. Talia had stopped reading the bible to him at bed time, and though she still bought him things and took him out with the girls, she never volunteered for alone time with him.

Richard had, perhaps, grown warmer, but only in order to fill the void that he knew Harry was conscious of.

Glancing at the swings again longingly, he willed himself to stand up and start over to it even though he knew that it wouldn't be as fun as if he had Mary and Sarah to play with him. At the private school the Lincolns had sent him to for his third grade year he had not made many friends. It was a small school, many of the students from upperclass families that saw Harry as a charity case and an outcast. Luckily, the student body was small enough that bullying was never a problem, because every student was under constant supervisions of the teachers.

Even so, it was lonely, especially now that his almost-sisters were drifting from him.

"_Kkkkkkhhhhhhh!"_

A violent sound of a feline hissing had Harry nearly jumping out of his socks. He spun around to face Mickey, the chubby cat standing up straight with his tail straight up in the air and his ears lying flat against his ears.

"What's wrong with you?" Harry asked, frowning as he started over. When he got close enough to touch the frightened house pet, Mickey immediantly darted away across the yard and onto the fence that separated their back year from the one adjacent. Soon he was out of sight, leaving Harry confuse as he peered down and into the grass.

Out of the shadows, a long, wiry green just a shade darker than the grass started toward him. Harry couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a snake—the Lincoln family was against putting animals in cages for show, and therefore had never brought him to the zoo. Before that, Mr. Damon treated his farm with poisons around the perimeter to keep snakes out and Miss Charlotte had arthritis that made it difficult to walk for such long periods of time. Harry really only knew what snakes looked like from long distances and picture books, so though he knew this was only a garden snake and therefore harmless, he still jumped back with a frightened yelp.

"_A—A snake!"_

The snake responded, "_Yes, I am a snake. Must humans always state the obvious?_ _What were they expecting, a squirrel? I should bite you just for being a stupid human…_"

The…snake…_responded?_

Harry nearly choked on air, pressing his glasses hard to the bridge of his nose and clamping his eyes shut. He opened them again, and as the world came into focus he indeed saw the snake right where it had been before his purposeful blink.

"_Did you just—talk to me?_"

The snake reared back, a jerk that made Harry think it was just as surprised as he was.

"_A Speaker?"_

Harry took a step back and then inhaled slowly, "_You can speak English_?"

"_You can speak Parseltongue?"_

"_Er…no, I don't think so. I've never learned to…"_ He started to explain, and the thin body of the snake curled back down as thought relaxing somewhat.

"_It is not a language learned, Speaker, it is born. I am not speaking English, you are a Speaker of Snakes…"_ The snake slithered closer and Harry managed to stand his ground. Even if he was bitten, these little things were hardly dangerous. "_I have heard legends, but…for me, a humble garden snake to actually meet…"_

It sounded like it was talking to itself more than anything.

"_I…haven't spoken to a snake before."_ Harry confessed to the creature, gently sitting down on the ground as his heart calmed back to a more acceptable speed. "_I'm Harry. What is your name?_"

"_Strange...Legends have never said such Speakers were kinds. Only powerful…"_ Harry blushed at the compliment, and then felt more than a little bit silly for being embarrassed about something a snake said. "_My name is Sashasta…"_

"_So you're a girl?"_ Harry blurted out, and the snake snapped it's head back once more, this time with such force that it seemed to be outraged rather than just shocked.

"_Of course I am female, stupid human –"_

"_Sorry!" _Harry tried to calm her quickly, holding up his hands, "_I'm not very smart, that's all. I should have known. You're lovely, of course you're a girl."_

With an irritated but tolerant hiss, the reptile seemed to nod reluctantly.

Smiling gently, Harry hesitantly held out his hand palm up, "_You won't bite me, will you? Could I touch you? I've never touched a snake before."_

There was a long pause as Sashasta looked at the boy's small hand with a haughty air. Harry shifted awkwardly, and was about to retract his arm before she chose to nip his fingers, but stopped his action with a response.

"…_Yes, you may."_

Slowly, she moved forward and Harry grinned wider still as his fingers reached to allow the snake to crawl up his arm.

"Harry! Don't touch that!"

A sudden shriek had Harry jerking his head up, eyes widening as he watched Talia coming toward him with a plate of cookies in one hand and a glass of milk in the other. The snake paused, tense and unsure of what to make of the approaching woman.

"_No, it's okay, Talia, she's a nice snake, really!"_

"It's a disgusting, vile creature and—what are you _saying?_" Talia's eyes narrowed, "Stop speaking gibberish this instant, young man."

Harry blinked, looking back at Sashasta and then again to the tall form of the woman before him, "_What do you mean? I'm still talking like a snake?"_

"_You are, Speaker,"_ confirmed the garden snake.

Talia's eyes grew wide, her brown eyes flickering frantically several times from the snake and then back to the young boy.

"Don't touch it! What—are you—_talking _to it! Is that—you—" Talia's gaze was doubtful, fear and dread etched onto her otherwise lovely face. She dropped the plate and glass to the ground, the treat that had been meant for Harry soon coating the lawn. "You are! You're _talking _to it! Oh my—"

"_No, I—I mean yes—"_ Harry snatched his hand away from his limbless acquaintance, shaking his head and standing up to appease the woman had had come to think of as family. He managed to force English out of his mouth this time, "I—she's nice, I promise! She's not vile, she told me that her name is Sashasta and that she wouldn't bite me. I'll tell her not to bite you either—"

"Devil!"

Harry choked on his clarification and felt as though his feet had become one with the ground. He couldn't move, couldn't breath as that word came out of her mouth. She began to ramble something under her breath, to herself, and after a moment the green-eyed boy vaguely recognized it as a prayer.

"W—what?"

"Devil." She repeated viciously, eyes wide, panicked and somewhat crazed as she looked at him. "Spawn of Satan! I knew it was you, that day at the church, moving things that should not be moved and now talking to a snake!"

Harry took a step forward and opened his mouth, but she cut him off with an even harsher tone.

"I told Richard we should have sent you back!" She clutched at her hair, mussing the hairdo that she had so carefully put together, like she did every morning. "But no, he said you were a good boy. A good boy! Ha!"

Talia didn't shout when she was angry, she got _quiet, _this wasn't anger, this was pure and unadulterated terror. She was scared of what he was, what he could do.

"Please don't send me back!" Harry managed to cry out, rushing forward and grasping the woman's hand in a desperate plea for understanding. "I—I love you, you're—you're my—"

"What?"

She spoke above him, snatching her hand out of his grasp and leaving him there without the comfort of her touch. Her chest was heaving and her hands shaking

"_What _am I? Your _mother?"_ She all but roared at him, looking uglier than he'd thought it was possible that she could. "I am _not _your _mother._ You're a freak of nature—I will _never_ be your mother. "

Her thin, quivering hands clenched into fists as she tore her eyes away from him.

Harry's mouth had gone dry and the sky seemed to fall on him, suffocating him where he stood before her. This time his stomach did not go cold, but it seemed to disappear completely, a numbness spreading upward over the beating of his heart until it was the only think he could hear. Silence, the thud, thud, _thudding _of his aching chest and then the final words Talia spoke to him. There was no anger in them, not even fear this time, just a cool decision that seemed to be difficult to say aloud, if the tension in her jaw was anything to go by.

"I never want to see your face again."

The quiet that followed was the most intense absence of sound that Harry would ever experience. There seemed to be nothing, just…existence. He felt as though he had betrayed her. This family, this perfect, beautiful family had rejected him and…

All he could think was that there was something _wrong _with him.

There was pressure against the souls of his shoes, that was the first hint that he had that he was running. Somehow his eyes had ceased to connect to his brain in the light of everything that had occurred. He was running along the road, eyes and cheeks wet from tears he could not remember releasing, but he remembered how he got here. He had run, through the gate and into the front yard and out of the gated community and then further and further away from that wonderful house of Christmas's and smiles. He would be there burden no longer; he wouldn't upset their home with his face and his magic because they…didn't _deserve _that hardship.

Harry left with nothing, not his bible, not Sashasta, not the faded toilet paper picture that had once meant so much to him. He ran as far as his legs would take him, and without warning the terrain around him changed.

He was no longer in the countryside. The world had…doubled over and disappeared, then reappeared around him again. It was somewhere entirely different, a place that was vaguely familiar but that he had not seen in quite some time. His legs were weak from running for a length of time he was still unaware of, his knobby knees shaky as fought to keep upright, stumbling down the street several more yards until a street sign came into view.

Addle Street.

He was…standing right in front of the apartment complex that Miss Charlotte had lived in. The only truly safe place that he could ever remember being. He'd ended up here, _somehow, _thirty miles from the Lincoln's house.

Another part of being a wizard, he suspected.

The sidewalk scraped against his chin when he finally collapsed in the alley just outside of the familiar building, but the pain escaped him, sobbing for an entirely different reason.

He was a freak.

If a couple as wonderful as the Lincolns hated him for what he was, there was obviously something wrong with him. It didn't matter that he could make things happen, if he was _magic, _ because whatever it was …It had made her hate him.

He was alone _again_, and it was all his fault.

Perhaps this was all he was meant for.

* * *

><p>"Does 'ee talk?"<p>

"Not since I found him."

"Where'd ya say 'gain, offica'?"

"Addle Street. Kid looked like he hadn't moved for days."

"Think 'ee been there long?"

"He's not emaciated, so I think it's pretty recent."

"Short, but not unhealthy. Leave 'em to me."

"Sure. Social Services will be able to handle him. Poor thing."

"Right then, mate. Y'get back to work. Shouldn' be handlin' matters like this."

"No problem. I just couldn't let another one get by me, and he wasn't protesting, like the others…"

"You wanna say anything, kid? You got a name?"

"…"

"C'mon. You want us t'just keep callin' you 'kid', kid?"

"How about I get you some water?"

"…"

"Just a nod will do, if you really don't wanna talk."

"…Water, please."

"Oi! He speaks!"

"Sorry."

"S'okay, kid, m'a say you gotta name?"

"…Yeah. Harry."

"Last name?"

"Why?"

"We'll have to contact your parents, Harry. I'm a police officer. I'll try to make sure you don't get in too much trouble."

"…"

"…Ya got parents, doncha?"

* * *

><p>"You know, the other children are outside playing."<p>

"Yeah, I know."

"Why don't you join them?"

"I…guess I just don't feel like it."

"I see."

"…So who're you? You…weren't here last time I was here. Jay was the supervisor then."

"Jay is…gone."

"Gone? That's….I'm glad."

"Are you? Most of the kids were upset."

"I'm not. He was a bad man."

"…You're a smart kid, Harry."

"Not really."

"Do you like to read?"

"Sure…it's okay, I guess."

"Not a bookworm, not the outdoorsy type…what type are you?"

"Nothing, really. Just a…just a freak, I guess."

"Who told you that?"

"…"

"Harry? Who called you that?"

* * *

><p>It took only a week and a half to find a place that would take Harry in, which had surprised him quite a bit. He was getting older, and though still small and prepubescent, he was far from the preferred age. Harry didn't protest, he couldn't wait to get out of St. Peters, because even though Jay was no longer present the memories of what had occurred there, the horrible sobbing, was fresh when he was inside the house's walls.<p>

Sitting on the couch in a small, obnoxiously decorated living room, Harry found himself fiddling with his glasses as the adults spoke in the hallway. It was the same man that had delivered him to the Lincolns almost a year and a half ago, this time talking to short chubby man with oval glasses that seemed to be sweaty, despite the fact that it was cool in his home and his face reminded him of a turtle. The skin of the man's neck sagged around his throat and his flabby arms were slick with perspiration as he gave a smile and nodded at the case worker.

Beside his new foster father was a small woman, small, plump and pleasant looking, though her nose seemed slightly too large for her face. Harry watched them out of the corner of his eye as Philip Waters, his case worker, politely shook hands with the couple. He wasn't fond of the décor of the home, filled with several odd Coo Coo clocks and tacky memorabilia on awkwardly placed shelves, but it was certainly homier than the week he'd spent in an alley digging through the trash for scraps of food.

Then he was approached by the dark haired man in the suit, who knelt beside him.

"Mr. and Mrs. Fillmore are going to take good care of you, alright?"

Slowly, Harry raised his green eyes to those of the adult's, and then nodded gently, "Yeah, alright."

"I'll check up on you next week to see how everything is going, yeah?"

"Okay."

Harry watched him walk out the door, and after several long moments, the sound of the man's beat up van rattling away could be heard fading with distance.

"Harry, is it?" spoke the turtle-like man suddenly, approaching the boy slowly. Mrs. Fillmore hung back in the doorway silently as her husband approached him.

"Yeah. Harry Owen."

A thin smile crept onto Mr. Fillmore's face, ruffling his five O'clock shadow. "First mistake. Stand up, boy."

The bespectacled child frowned, brow furrowing in confusion. What had been his mistake? He'd been asked a question and he'd answered. Now he was simply confounded.

"Why?" He finally asked.

"Second mistake," growled the sweaty creature. Harry had never seen a turtle growl before. "_Stand. Up."_

This time, after a few moments of hesitation, he did so. He gripped the arm of the couch and pried himself out of its sunken cushions, as it was the type of furniture that liked to swallow its occupants whole. He brushed his bangs out of his eyes and brought his emerald gaze up to the strangely pretty dark blue ones glowering from above him. However, even though Harry was only eight –nine in two months—Mr. Fillmore was only a handful of inches taller than him. He was truly a stout man, but he bowed up when Harry looked at him, more like a certain croaking amphibian than any kind of reptile.

No sooner had he managed to get himself up into a standing position, he was knocked clear off of his feet.

Pain shot through his stomach at a blow that was so forceful that the pain vibrated all the way down to young Harry's kneecaps. He went flying over the coffee table with the power of it, landing on the floor painfully. His shoulder protested beneath him when he landed on it and his glasses went flying off his face, skidding to a stop several feet away from him on the tile floor.

"We have rules in this house, boy. Mister there said you're a trouble maker. Had a nice family and you just _ran away _from them," Mr. Fillmore stepped around the coffee table that had probably made a notable bruise on Harry's knee, taking sluggish steps toward where the boy was splayed, "You're not going to run away from here. Because you're going to follow my rules."

Opening his eyes to a blurry world, the youth managed to see the blurry outline of the man above him. That blow had been harder than anything Mr. Damon had delivered to him, and right in the tender stretch of his stomach. Even now, several seconds later, he couldn't manage to catch his breath.

"First rule," the adult snarled, "You don't have a name here. You don't matter enough to have a fucking _name._"

A swift kick to the same spot he had been punched had Harry yelping, choking on his cry and clutching at his stomach for a long moment as the man gathered himself once more to continue.

"Second rule. You respond to me 'Yes, sir' or 'No, sir', and to my wife, you respond 'Yes, ma'am' or 'No, ma'am'. _Is that understood?_"

Harry wheezed, still trying to regain the brain cells he'd lost from the lack of oxygen.

The very leg that had kicked him moved back once more to read itself for another, and Harry managed to scoot back on the floor, coughing so hard he felt the inside of his chest become sore.

"Y—Yes, I…understand, sir."

The shoe paused in its trek and a grin that was more earnest twisted onto his waxy-like features.

"Lookit that, Gloria, he's a fast learner."

Harry wondered briefly if this woman would be like Mr. Damon's wife, just a spectator to the violence and not a participant. Before he could think on the subject any further, the wind was being knocked out of him and he felt something in him crack. The sound wasn't audible, but beneath the show he felt something _give._

The pain did not fade this time, but instead resonated downward and lingered in the base of his spine as tears stung his eyes.

"Second rule, don't ask questions. You do what we say, _period._ We don't have to answer none of your questions, do we, Gloria?"

She must have nodded, because Mr. Fillmore continued.

"So we don't want to hear them. In fact, you shouldn't talk at all, unless we've asked you something first. _Understand?"_

Harry squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself not to cry. He had come to learn over the past two years just what Tony and Beth had meant about there being worse places. St. Mary's had been terrifying, and the Lincolns had made him love them…Mr. Damon was not, kind but he took care of them, and never so well that they grew attached.

"Y-yes, sir," He managed to whisper through the agony reverberating through his entire chest and stomach.

"Good. Gloria'll show you to the basement."

He heard a sound that he couldn't quite identify from above him and it took him a moment to feel the warm fluid leaning from his hair onto his forehead. After a moment of listening to the footsteps of the man walking away, the humiliation set in as he realized that the man had spaton him.

* * *

><p><strong>You're all going to hate me before chapter ten, I swear. Harry's life before Hogwarts is…really very sad, and he won't be going to Hogwarts at eleven. But it's all shaping him into the person that he's going to become. He'll be going to Hogwarts around Chapter Twelve (I believe). The next chapter is almost twice this length as well as the END of OCs.<strong>

**Reviews and feedback would be so wonderful you don't even know. **

**You know you want to!**

**\/**

**Toes~**


	6. Company

_**Shifting of the Plate**_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Six -<strong> _Company_

* * *

><p><strong>Warnings<strong>__**: **__Racism, Racial Slurs, Bad Language, Child Abuse.

* * *

><p>The bathroom above the basement had started leaking over Harry's cot six months ago.<p>

He'd moved his bed just a few inches to the left so that he wouldn't be dripped on by the faulty pipes that Fillmore would never get fixed. Not that, at the end of December, there was any hope for being warmer in the snow surrounded basement.

The Holiday away from school was not a welcome relief to Harry as it was to most of the students at school. He had learned to enjoy his time away from the couple that housed him, and had also learned the uses of…well, not telling the truth. He had been taught as a child by the only guardian that had only ever cared for him that fibbing was not good, but over the last eight months of his life he had learned that such a concept was not entirely correct.

Especially when lying was basically one of the rules of living in the Fillmore house. Lying to teachers about how he'd broken his arm, lying to students about why he didn't feel like playing with them when he really just was too bruised to run around, to his caseworker when he came around occasionally and asked him how he liked it there, and lying to Fillmore and Gloria whenever he said 'Yes, Sir' or 'Yes, Ma'am'.

He had been wrong when he had assumed that Gloria was merely a bystander to Fillmore's abuse.

Gloria was…probably worse.

The woman had never touched him unkindly herself. She was a short woman that walked like her ankles were held together by a ribbon that was only a foot long, her steps light and dainty. Her smile was a mere curl of the lips that pushed her pudgy cheeks up and made her dark eyes squint. She was not the type to dirty her hands by hitting him, but Gloria made sure that Fillmore didn't go too long without doing it himself.

She liked to stir things up when Harry got too compliant. On the second day, when Harry had been told to do the dishes, she'd spoken to him rather amiably, but he had grown to know over time that it was merely so she could find out his weaknesses.

Harry had never known how much his temper could be provoked until Gloria went out of her way to say that his mother had probably been a 'crack whore' that couldn't afford to keep him. Or that it was probably for the best that Miss Charlotte had died since she was a 'good for nothing ape'.

Harry knew about racism from school, they'd had seminars about it and told him about what had happened to black people, like Miss Charlotte and Beth. He knew just what 'N-word' was and what a horrible thing it was to call someone.

Gloria called Miss Charlotte that all the time, once Harry had mentioned off handedly that her skin reminded him of coffee.

Her cruel insults sparked a fire in Harry every time, no matter how hard he'd tried to quell it.

For the first two weeks he'd managed to keep himself from being beaten by Fillmore, until he'd blown up at the wife for whispering something particularly vicious about his parents. His ribs had already been cracked from two weeks ago, but Harry had always been an exceptionally fast healer. Within a month, the broken wrist he had procured for calling Gloria a filthy liar had healed almost entirely. Which was probably for the best, as he had never been taken to the hospital for it.

Over the last eight months Harry's injuries continued to pile up until he lost count of them. There was no use. He was hurt, he healed, and then he tried to control himself better the next time Gloria attempted to provoke him.

For the last two days, the Fillmore's had been gone, leaving him padlocked in the basement. It was the weekend –at least, Harry _thought _it was—and he hadn't eaten since the day they left. He wasn't sure if he was happy to have time to recoup from his last beating with the both of them gone or if he was unhappy about not having eaten. Not that Gloria was an exemplary cook, or that they fed him very often anyway, but rarely did they leave him like this.

Harry was sitting on his bed, leaning against the cold wall with his blanket curled around him tightly and shivering as he watched the snow fall through the broken glass of his single tiny window. It was too small for him to fit through, even if he could reach it, and the glass had been broken in it before Harry could get to it. If Harry kept a cup beneath it, the water from the snow would drip through the shattered gaps and give him something to drink. He could survive without food for a while, no matter how skinny he'd gotten over the last few months, as long as he had water.

But the broken hole in the window, big enough for him to fit both fists through, did nothing to keep the warmth in.

On the third night Harry found himself growing dizzy with hunger, though he was more than a little bit glad that his bruises had been left to fade and his ribs had been allowed a reprieve from Fillmore's boot.

It was terribly hard to sleep when one's tummy was growling.

Not being able to sleep when he liked was making the time move remarkably slow. He stared at the ceiling, then the wall, then the floor, and rotated between the two as he daydreamed of warmth and Christmas that had come and gone without so much as waving _hello _to him.

After several hours, he found a freckle on his wrist that he didn't think he'd ever noticed before, and stared at that for a while.

It was the middle of the night, of that he was sure, or perhaps very early in the morning. The sky was still dark, which made it colder than ever in the dank dungeon that held him captive, and he'd only just managed to succumb to the weight of his eyelids when a voice yanked him back from the edge of unconsciousness.

"_Come here, little mousey, that's it, come to me-will you cut it out, it's almost-come, come, come-shut it already, our prey is getting-you cannot run much longer…"_

Not Fillmore. Not Gloria. They weren't back yet, but his heart was still racing painfully within his aching ribcage from how he'd been startled. It wasn't either of his guardians; it wasn't a _human_ at all. It took Harry a moment realize that the voice, quite obviously reptilian, was not even one single voice, but two. The first voice was slow and almost melodic, while the second was choppy and quick with its words.

"_No, it's mine! I saw it first!"_ said the one that spat its words like venom.

"_It was I who wanted to hunt in the first place,"_ replied the smoother tone. Other than the fashionin which they spoke, the voices were identical. Definitely snakes. Harry couldn't remember ever being so excited to see one—though his ability to talk to them had gotten him into more trouble than not, he was desperate for the companionship.

"You_ have already eaten, Glutton!"_

"_Who are you calling a glutton? You're simply envious of my impeccable taste, my dear sibling."_

"_Spouting corny little chants as you chase the thing? Really tasteful, I must say."_

"_There is no shame in taunting one's food! I am no glutton, I am a connoisseur of fine rodents—You're letting it get away!"_

"_You are the one who –Talt!"_

Harry wondered if he was losing his touch. He didn't understand the last word that the snake had said, and crawled further over the edge of his cot in an attempt to understand them better, and perhaps spot them in the moonlight that shone in scarce ribbons through the broken window. Was that how the two snakes had gotten in, through the break in the glass?

"_What did you stop for? It's going to scurry away and neither of us will enjoy it if we don't hop to it—"_

"_I-…No, first of all, we're snakes, Talt. We slither, we do not hop, of all things—"_

Oh, Harry blinked and mentally nodded in satisfaction. Talt was his _name._

"_I am well aware of that, you condescending—"_

"—_and secondly, there is a human in the corner."_

"—_and just because I am loquacious enough to use human expressions, does not mean—Wait a moment, _what?_"_

"_A human. Just over there. I …think he's looking at us."_

"_We're being quiet. Don't be stupid, Fere, why would he be looking at us?"_

"_Your hissing was getting louder every moment…Master won't be pleased we've been spotted. I think we should kill him."_

Harry's ears perked at that, his head jerking a bit as he moved to sit up.

"…_I suppose you're right. There goes my after supper snack…we'll never catch up to the juicy little creature now."_

"_Yes, yes. There's always tomorrow. Shall we both bite him?"_

"_On three?"_

"_No, no, you know what always happens. We always fight about who gets to say more numbers during a countdown. Four, that way it's even."_

"_Smartest thing you've said all night, Fere. Four—"_

"—_Three—"_

Scrambling for the right words, Harry managed to stop them before they got any farther, hissing somewhat frantically, "_Wait a moment, please don't bite me!"_

"…_Talt."_

"_Yes, Fere?"_

"_I fear I just hallucinated."_

"_I have the same fear."_

"_The same one?"_

"_That depends, I suppose. Did you just hear the human speak our language?"_

"_I did."_

"…_Yes, well, I suppose that would be the same hallucination then."_

"_N—no!"_ Harry started rapidly, swallowing thickly and peering at the half glass of water on the floor just beneath the window sill. He wanted it, his throat was dreadfully dry…but he still couldn't see the snakes and didn't want to take the chance they would be unfriendly to him. "_I…I'm a Speaker._"

There was a long pause where he could almost hear the pair staring at each other.

Then there was a series of wordless hisses, which made Harry frown as he was left befuddled as to what it meant. Was there part of the language he didn't know, perhaps, part of it that he hadn't been _born _with—?

"—_Speaker, he says!"_

"_Yes, my dear sibling, I dare say I heard him. He is no doubt a foolish child…"_

It occurred to Harry then, by the content of their words, that the hissing that he had not been able to understand was _laughing. _They were…amused with him.

He supposed that was better than them wanting to bite him.

"_What's so funny?_" He managed to ask after a moment, staying up where it was safe on the bed just in case being able to speak to them wasn't enough to keep their fangs at bay.

"_Only the ignorant call Parselmouths 'Speakers',"_ explained the snake that took his time with his words.

"_Yes. Honestly, what self-respecting wizard does not know what the proper name for such a gift is?"_

Harry found his ears going hot at the insult and he muttered defensively, "_I'm only nine-years-old. I haven't gone to Hogwarts yet, and I'm stuck with people that don't know anything about magic!"_

"_Muggles!"_

"_A wizard born of Muggles?"_

"_No, Fere, of course not. Raised by Muggles, perhaps, but Master told us only an heir can speak to snakes…So very rare. He would be exhilarated if we could tell him."_

"_Alas!"_ hissed Fere in a fashion that Harry thought rather dramatic, "_Master can't understand us even if we return home with news of the boy. Master is brilliant, but he cannot even—"_

"_What's a Muggle?"_ Harry blurted out before either of them went off on another tangent as though he was not even in the room. Humans did that to him enough as it was, he didn't need it from _animals _as well.

"_Someone that is not magic_," answered the erratic voice, which belonged to the one called Fere, Harry had figured out.

"_Someone that is not magic born of others who are not magic," _the second snake corrected.

Harry hadn't the faintest idea what that part meant, but he didn't question it. Muggle was an odd word, but as he rolled it over in his mind several times, he already found it growing on him.

"_Alright,"_ the human in the room assented, once more leaning up over his bed slightly in hopes to get a glimpse of his new acquaintances. Talking to them had already made him forget his hunger, though the cold was more difficult to think passed. "_So I'm a…Pars…Parselmouth then. Not a Speaker. That's just what the garden snake that I spoke to once called me."_

"_Obviously he was not the companion of an educated Master,"_ Taft all but drawled at him, which made Harry's lips quirk up into a grin.

"_Uncivilized snakes…I pity them."_

"_So,"_ Harry started again, squinting in the darkness. He thought he saw the tail of one of them, but in the shadow drenched basement it was difficult to tell. "_I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself. I'm Harry. I already know your names. Talt and Fere, right?"_

There were two separate hisses of affirmation.

"_Great," _He said cheerfully, and then thought over his next words carefully. He had nearly insulted Sashasta by not knowing whether or not she was a girl almost a year ago and didn't want history to repeat itself, with snakes that seemed to be venomous and more inclined to bite him. "_Can I ask…um, what I mean is—I don't want to be rude. But—I…well, are you both…? Are you…erm, boys or girls?"_

Taking a deep breath after the question was out, he held it hard in his lungs as he awaited an answer. Or the sharp bite and burn of venom in his veins—

Fere chose to speak first when it came to elucidation on the matter. "_You could call me a 'she'_."

"_And you could call me a 'he'_," Talt continued in kind.

"_You could be right, or you could be wrong_."

"_If you were to call me a 'she', you would not be incorrect—"_

"—_and if you were to call me a 'he' at the same time, you might be right as well."_

"_But,"_ Talt raised his—or her?—head slightly, "_If you were to call us both she's or both he's, you would be incorrect._"

"_Yes, quite incorrect, indeed._"

Coincidently, that did not help Harry out at all.

Straightening his glasses to sit more firmly on the bridge of his nose, as though that would help him understand what had just occurred more accurately, Harry blinked his eyes hard as he looked around, half blind in the nearly lightless room.

"_I'm sorry, I didn't understand any of that," _the dark-haired wizard admitted awkwardly, rubbing his frozen hands over his knees in an effort to warm them subconsciously.

If snakes could sigh, that was what both of them did in succession a second later.

"_I suppose we might as well show him, sibling dearest."_

"_Yes, that's the easiest way to go about it. Come, let's get closer so that this Harry-child can see."_

Excitedly Harry watched as the long smooth body of a snake came into view for him. The colors were distorted, but shimmered beautifully, it's body about the width of a soda can at its thickest and twice as long as Harry was tall. It was a rather large creature, but that was not the most shocking feature that the snake had. The strangest characteristic was that there was indeed only one snake to see, eight feet of a single body that then split off into two separate heads of equal size.

"…_Blimey,"_ Harry gawked for a long moment as the two heads swerved to accommodate the coil that the rest of the reptile's body was making.

"_We are one in the same,"_ Talt explained with an easy tone, almost a shrug to it, if Harry were to personify his inflection. He was the head on the right, and the orphan tucked the information away for safe keeping.

"_We have the 'nethers' of both a male and female," _The left head went on, "_Meaning that one of us is male and the other is female, but there is…no way to tell which one._"

The previous conundrum about gender seemed to make a whole lot more sense when Harry reflected on it, now that he knew the truth.

"_Gotcha. That's _wicked_." _He grinned, propping his chin up on his fist as emerald eyes studied their odd yet incredible form.

"_Personally, when it comes to who's female_," Talt hissed superiorly, "_I'm betting on him_."

* * *

><p>The next three days that passed were probably the best that Harry could remember for quite some time.<p>

He had company for the first time in eight months, and he didn't go hungry anymore, as his new friends had begun to carry him food from their home in their mouths. It was not a great deal of food, of course, just bread rolls mostly, but it kept him from growing faint from starvation.

They also told him more about the wizarding world than Miss Charlotte ever could have, with her limited knowledge. Apparently, their master was someone that they called a '_pureblood'_ from a family of high distinction. However, they also mentioned that he was estranged from them for some reason that they decided it would be best not to go into detail about. Their master was quite ashamed of it, and it wasn't their place to tell him.

Talt and Fere were more than happy to travel to see him every day, and they said that the journey was not overly far. It was just through the forest a couple of miles, in a secret location that Muggles like the Fillmore's would never be able to find. Not being able to be found, Harry thought, was probably the most useful thing about being magic.

"_So, snakes are cold-blooded, right?"_ He asked on the sixth day of being locked in the basement, the two headed snake curled up on his bed. The sun was shining through the small window and streaming into the room in sparkling beams, lighting the usually depressing room up remarkably.

"_Of course we are!"_ Fere replied as Harry munched on a piece of bread they had brought him.

"_Such a foolish infant you are, Harry-child, to not know something as common as that,"_ added Talt sympathetically.

"_I was just—observing!"_ the dark-haired human explained, sputtering.

"_Brilliant observation,_" drawled Talt in reply, turning to his brother. The snake head on the left turned to him in kind.

"_Yes, quite. Would you like to point out next that we don't have arms or legs?"_

"_You're both really annoying," _Harry told them bluntly, to which the two necks jerked simultaneously in a mockery of a shrug. "_What I was going to ask was…well…if you're cold blooded, how is it that you're okay in the snow?"_

"_Ah, I suppose that's a fair question,"_ Talt stated after a moment of consideration. "_It's because Master has an acquaintance of his cast a Warming Charm on us before every winter. It keeps our body temperature level even when we're in cold places. But during the summer it's unnecessary and so he has them take it off._"

"_Quite useful when it comes to hunting. Or else we'd never have any fun chasing our own food."_

"_Oh yes. I'd hate to be confined to the Cabin all winter long without being able to capture our dinner at all."_

"_Wait a moment,"_ Harry started suddenly, something off about what they had just said, "_If your master is from such a wonderful family of wizards, why is it that he can't just cast the spell on you himself? Why does he have to have someone else do it for him?"_

Just as his question was coming to a close, Harry heard the sound of a door slamming shut.

It startled him, echoing through the entire house and jolting him so much that he completely forgot his question. He stared at the stairs that led up to the door leading back to the rest of the house. His hands shook slightly as he stuffed the rest of the bread in his mouth and chewed quickly, forcing it down his throat even though the cold outside had dried it out and made it hard. It didn't matter, not as long as something was in his stomach.

Harry quickly turned to the snakes, "_You've both got to leave! Or—hide, at least, so they won't find you."_

"_Who?"_

"_The muggles?"_

"_Yes, the muggles," _replied the orphan quickly as he pulled the blanket that the couple had so generously bestowed him over the two-headed snake. "_Please, be still, or he'll hurt you both_."

With that he was scrambling out of his bed, wincing at the freezing cellar floor beneath his bare feet. He pulled his socks on quickly, hopping on either foot as he did so. He slipped on his shoes as well to keep his feet warm, just in case whatever beating he had coming left him knocked out and even more susceptible to the cold.

Sure enough, the door to the basement opened a moment later, but it was actually _not_ Fillmore coming to repay him for every blow, smack and kick he hadn't been able to give him over the past six days. Instead it was Gloria, with an apple in her hand, tossing it up into the air and letting it roll onto the floor. It rolled to a stop not far from the final step of the staircase.

"You're alive," she commented wryly, as though amused, "I told him you would be. You're a resourceful little freak, aren't you?"

Over the months, Gloria had called him every name imaginable. After a while, she had landed on 'freak' and Harry had made the mistake of flinching at it. She knew it hit home, knew it meant something to him and used it to her advantage.

This time, however, Harry didn't flinch.

Somehow, having companionship, _friends, _over the last few days had given him the resolve he'd needed.

"…Yes, ma'am," He replied softly, raising his vibrant eyes up to gaze blankly at the woman at the top of the stairs. He was glad that it seemed to come out in English, not Parseltongue. He was getting better at transitioning from one to the other.

Her eyebrow twitched in annoyance, "Yes, well, there's an apple. I'll be making dinner soon enough…that should tide you over. I'm sure your starving, aren't you? Looking a bit peaky there, Harry."

He honestly couldn't help but prefer 'freak' to the horrible woman actually using his name.

"Yes, ma'am," Harry murmured once again, though fortunately his stomach was in better shape than it would have been if he hadn't met Talt and Fere.

Gloria paused in the doorway, a small hand moving to prop up on her wide hips.

She pursed her mouth together into a thin line that had Harry's heart skipping a beat. He guessed that she had been gone too long and was itching for him to be hungry and angry, causing Mr. Fillmore to …_placate _him.

"So how _did _you survive down here, hm?" She looked around with an air of distaste for the cold room, her jacket still on from being outside in the snow. "We didn't leave you with anything during our little vacation…you're a bloody _cockroach_, aren't you?"

Harry just gazed at her blankly in return, frowning slightly but not giving her the satisfaction of seeing him twitch.

"…Yes, ma'am." He replied, his lip quirking lightly upward.

Startled, she reared back, before snarling at them as she started down the steps, "_Cover up that ugly smile on your face, you wretched little bastard!"_

Harry did so rapidly, his hand coming up to hide his mouth from her.

"Must be in the _genes, _innit? Being a cockroach? You're filthy whore of a mother must have passed that along to you." she murmured cruelly, reaching the last step and pausing there as her small lips stretched into a toothless grin. "Is that it?"

The word sparked the first bit of anger in his chest. It always did. He didn't care what the man called him, but when it came to the parents he'd never known, it just…infuriated him. How _dare _she? She didn't have the first clue what it meant to be a mother, to _care _about someone.

His parents had abandoned him, so he'd been told, but even so they were his _kin. _He was sure they would have treated him better than this woman and her husband—

They couldn't have been _worse_,at least.

His small hands clenched by his sides and he lowered his gaze to the ground before him, glaring the stone floor by the woman's shoes. "…Yes, ma'am…"

"Hmph," her high-pitched voice toned in satisfaction, "I'm not so sure. After all, they just dumped you in the trash, didn't they? I think being a dirty cockroach is in the _nurturing._ Wouldn't you say?"

Harry's shoulders tensed and his knuckles went white with the tightness of his fists.

Fury bubbled in his stomach so hot he nearly forgot the freezing basement, forgot that his toes were still half frigid and that his teeth still chattered when he wasn't gnawing the front row down against the bottom.

"That dumb coon you lived with taut you how to be a disgusting little roach, mh?"

Harry saw red flash before his eyes, but he managed to stay silent.

"Probably used to being abused herself, had to learn to live through it…too bad she didn't die sooner though. Cotton-picking monkey like that wouldn't have done any good just hanging from a tree like an apple, though—"

His stomach was knotting up painfully within him, anger no longer just an emotion, but a substance that ran through his veins. It seared every inch of him, made his eyes flash at the horrible things she was saying. He only understood half of it, but he didn't have to know the exact meaning of the words to know what was intended by them.

"Actually," Gloria went on, her voice low and amused, "I think she probably would have made good _firewood, _if nothing else, the good-for-nothing _monkey—"_

"_No!_"

The shout echoed against the hard walls of the basement, the nine-year-old's chest heaving with restraint. Perhaps he deserved this, the beatings, the starvation, the darkness, the _loneliness—_in fact, he'd convinced himself long ago that he did, but Miss Charlotte did _not._

"Excuse me?" the woman whispered dangerously, and as Harry lifted his eyes to her, he saw that her smile had dropped.

"You…you heard me…" Harry had the nerve to say, his clenched fingers shaking by his sides.

"Actually I didn't, you stupid cretin!" She shouted at him, obviously perturbed, "You shouted nonsense at me! Should have known, being raised by an uneducated _monkey _like her would have addled anyone's mind—"

"Shut _up!"_ Harry cried, making sure that he spoke in English this time. He couldn't afford another slip up like that, not in front of Gloria. "Just shut up, don't _call _her that, she—she was twice the person you'll ever be!"

Gloria looked like she'd been slapped across the face, and her chubby cheeks seemed to puff up as her face contorted into an expression of unadulterated anger.

"Why, you ungrateful, degenerate _insect, _I ought to—"

Rather suddenly, the contortion of her face shifted into something quite different. Terror.

"Oh my _God!"_ She cried, stumbling on the step she had been holding herself up on, and gripping the railing to keep steady. Her eyes shot behind Harry's shoulder, and even as the young boy turned around, he knew what sight awaited him.

Talt and Fere were hovering high, curled up into a pre-strike position behind him. They had apparently been unable to hold themselves back any longer, despite Harry having told them to keep hidden.

"_We heard your cry, Harry-child, and thought you were in need of assistance."_

"_Shall we bite her?"_ Fere asked eagerly.

"It—they—two—GARY!" She suddenly shrieked loudly, making Harry wince and turn back toward her. She was panicked, obviously stuck in place, "GARY! SNAKE! OH MY—GET YOUR SHOTGUN! KILL IT—_"_

"_You won't harm them!"_ Harry found himself hissing, an insurmountable wave of fear and rage crashing through his body at the thought. The only friends he'd had for the last eight months, the only reason he was probably _standing _right now, would not be taken away from him.

His insides seemed to coil within him even more at the thought of losing them.

"What—"

Abruptly, something very odd was happening. Gloria was _steaming._ For a moment Harry thought he might be dreaming, because it was just the sort of comical thing that would happen in a cartoon, _not _in real life, being so upset that you physically began to produce smoke.

"What is happening to me? What is—I—" She looked down at herself wildly as her body seemed to turn into a gelatinous substance, sinking into the ground and turning dark as she did so. "Are you doing this, you little freak? What are you doing? Stop this! Stop this _now_!"

In the doorway, the pudgy form of Gary Fillmore appeared, holding a rather intimidating shotgun in his left hand.

"Ruddy snakes in the basement in the middle of winter, boy's bad luck, I say—Gloria? " He stopped a few steps down at the sight of a now almost entirely black form of steaming liquid. It was the color of hot tar, but slightly less sticky and thick. "What the hell is going on here!"

Harry didn't know how to explain it.

"Gary! Gary, make it stop, I'm melting, I don't-oh god, I….gghnhnnm…" There was a gurgling sound as the form of the woman shrunk even more into a bubbling mess of black goo.

Harry was reminded of _The Wizard Of Oz_, a movie that had been his favorite as a child. Perhaps that was where this manifestation of his magic had come from?

"What have you done to her!" Fillmore demanded, stomping down the steps and cocking his shotgun. Harry heard the hiss of both snake's rearing back defensively.

Harry couldn't let him die. He didn't want to die himself, and after what had happened to his wife, Fillmore certainly seemed confounded and furious enough to really kill him this time.

Heart pounding in his chest, the boy took a step back as his own emotions took control of him. He felt a surge of power swell within him once more, fury and panic combining within him in a magical upset that had the shot gut clattering to the step below him—

—as did Fillmore's arm.

It had turned into a substance that looked like plastic, like the arm of a mannequin, falling down several more steps and finally settling just two or three away from the last one.

Harry stared wide-eyed at it and swallowed, shifting his emerald orbs back to his assailant fearfully. The stub of his arm was not bleeding, instead it looked like a clean stub of his shoulder, like an amputation that had long since healed. Horror and rage was etched into the lines of Fillmore's face a moment later, and the arm that was left reached for the shot gun in turn.

"The fuck did you just do to me? I'll _kill you! I'll fucking kill you—"_

The second arm detached and turned solid, thudding down the steps with much more momentum this time and falling into part of the large puddle of black liquid that had once been his wife.

"You bastard! Undo this! Whatever this witchcraft is, I demand you _reverse it—"_

The next event stopped his words, choking on them as his legs suddenly went stiff beneath him, and the trunk of his body seemed to slide off of them. His trousers kept him upright for a moment, but he always wore baggy, unflattering clothes—not that there was much to flatter, really—and a moment later he was falling headfirst down the stairs.

Miraculously, he didn't break his neck, the eerily limbless body tumbling down the stairs, and making a splash in the tar-like substance that was what remained of Gloria.

"I—I…" Harry stammered at the side of it all, watching Fillmore sputter and lift his head out of the gunk.

"I'll kill you!" He screamed threateningly, his eyes crazed as he squirmed, helpless and barely able to move without his arms and legs. "I'll fix this and then I'll kill you, boy, you hear me? No, I'll worse than kill you, I'll string you up by your fucking toes and–"

Harry tuned him out and turned toward the snake before him, breathing quickly but not yet hyperventilating.

"_What do I do? What do I _do?" He asked them frantically, his hands shaking as he twisted his fingers into the hem of his shirt. "_I've killed her, and hurt Fillmore real bad-I…will I be arrested? I don't—"_

"_You won't be arrested by the Ministry of Magic—and you didn't kill her, Harry-child."_ Talt explained to him, his voice rather soothing, though he did seem disappointed. "_It's reversible. All wandless magic is."_

"_And the Muggle Police won't get you if you run,"_ Fere said, his head moving as though he was surveying the scene. "_Quickly now, up the stairs and out before the Aurors get here—"_

Harry didn't know what 'Aurors' were, but he figured that getting out of the house was probably a good idea.

He reached out his trembling hand and allowed the two-headed snake to slither up his arm and curl around his neck several times, the threat of suffocation there but not exactly at the forefront of his young, terrified mind. He leaped over the amputated form of Fillmore and onto the first step. He bounded up the rest of them and away from the man lying on the floor and cursing at him, down the hallway and toward the front door.

"_Coat,"_ Fere hissed in his ear.

"_What—huh?"_ Harry asked quickly, stopping in his tracks with his hand on the doorknob, just a twist from freedom.

"_Take a coat with you, or you'll freeze out there, Harry-child,"_ Talt elucidated, which made much more sense to the young boy's muddled brain. The coat closet by the door was easy enough to reach into, grasping a large, thick jacket that belonged to Fillmore and pulling it over himself. The collar was high and covered the body of the snake as well, drowning his small body as he hugged it around himself.

A moment later, cold air hit his face and snow crunched beneath his shoes. He was several steps away from the porch when a thought came to him.

"_Where am I going? Where…do I run? I-we're miles away from the nearest house. I…I don't …"_

"_Nonsense," _Fere replied, quick tongued as ever, "_You'll be coming home with us_."

"_What? I—I can't do something like that, I…I have to go back to fostercare, so that I—"_

"_So that you may be placed with more Muggles?"_snarled Talt in disgust, rubbing his head over Harry's jaw, "_We've told you, our Master will be delighted to have a Parselmouth in his midst…"_

Harry was still extremely hesitant, "_But…I…"_

"_Towards the woods, Harry-child,"_ Talt cut him off in a tone that dared him to argue with him, "_It's only a few miles into the woods from here._ _Start now and we'll make it within the hour."_

He still did not move.

"_Can I bite him, Talt?"_

Huffing under his breath, he watched his exhale turn visible just in front of his lips. "_I'm going, I'm going…_"

Without further argument, Harry found himself walking into the woods. The trees began thin and close together at the edge and grew thicker and slightly more spread out as he continued. It was warmer beneath the canopy of branches and leaves, the layer of snow on the ground less thick as he continued his trek, and therefore less likely to sink through the soles of his shoes and turn his toes into ice cubes.

He listened to the snakes as they chatted idly but didn't speak much himself, not wanting his teeth to knock into each other or to stammer too much in their presence. His mind was still on what had happened in the basement and he wondered idly if anyone had arrived there and seen what he'd done. Guilt was heavy in the pit of his stomach, sitting there like an anvil and slowing him down as he walked. The cold didn't help of course, though he was glad that the snakes had thought to remind him of a coat, and that their body was wrapped around his neck and stopping the chilling breeze from hitting his throat.

It was over an hour of seeing nothing but trees when through the thicket he saw the figure of a small home in the distance.

Quickening his pace in order to make it there faster, within minutes he was standing in the shadow of an almost ridiculously small cabin. It was probably only twenty square feet, hardly larger than the basement that he had been stuffed into for so long.

The clearing of trees was only so large, just enough room for the cabin, so much so that many trunks were brushing the sides and roof of the cabin and casting it in shadows.

Harry swallowed, in an effort to moisturize his dry mouth, "_This is it?"_

"_No," _Fere said rather quickly, "_The other cabin in the middle of the forest_."

The sarcasm lightened the mood just barely, enough for Harry to harden his resolve, approach the door and knock firmly three times.

Almost a minute ticked by.

"_He must not be here,_" Harry mumbled dejectedly, his heart sinking in disappointment, falling somewhere near the anvil that he was carrying within him.

"_Impossible,"_ stated Talt dismissively, "_Master is _always _here._"

"_Indeed," _agreed the second head, as though entertained by Harry's apprehensiveness, "_He's probably looking at you through the peephole."_

Harry's green gaze shot to the small hole in the upper-center of the door, a couple heads above his eye-level. He forced his face back down, looking at his soaked shoes as he shuffled his feet.

"…_That's comforting. I told you he wouldn't want me here—"_

A moment later the door swung open with a harsh _swooshing _sound, revealing the extremely tall form of a man that looked shocked beyond belief.

Harry took a step back, frightened and shocked at the suddenness of the movement as dark blue-grey eyes peered down at his shivering form. The man's hair was unkempt and fell in raven curls down to his shoulders. His nose was drastically thin and straight, his chin pointed and his eyebrows framing his sunken eyes too strongly. His large mouth was open just slightly, though no words were coming out of the drastically thin figure's mouth as he towered over his form.

"_I'm so sorry to just show up like this, sir, I—Talt and Fere said it would be okay but I told them_—" Harry began to apologize profusely, stumbling over his words, but after a moment he realized he'd been speaking snake, so it didn't really matter how eloquent he was or wasn't. He closed his eyes tightly and tried again, "S—sorry, sir, I—"

"Shush," the deep voice was raspy, even more so than Harry's, like he was speaking through a throat full of small rocks. "I…just don't believe…"

Harry licked his lips to wet them, but it didn't do much good.

"A Parselmouth, just…showing up on my doorstep…" He muttered, and Harry realized he was talking to himself rather than to him. He shifted again, his shoes squeaking beneath him. The next murmur he made was so low that Harry only caught a single word. "…miracle…"

He was quite sure that he had never been called a 'miracle' before.

"Come in." The tall figure told him suddenly, the sound louder and more crisp than the words before. He stepped aside to allow the small boy in, and Harry scrambled forward and into the warmth of the cabin…

…Only to find that it was somehow huge on the inside. The entrance was larger than the Fillmore's house entirely, a long staircase winding up to a second floor lined with large doors that led to at least a dozen rooms. The ceiling was high and a gothic chandelier hung in the center of a great marble floor. On either side of the room a giant brick fireplace roared with fire, making Harry just want to curl up and sleep on the floor just in front of it. Everything was deep wood and rich greens, somehow both plain and extravagant at the same time.

"W—whoa."

"My brother built it for me. Unfortunately, I was not granted as many…gifts… as he. But of my entire family he is the only one who acknowledges my existence, despite being a disgrace."

The door closed behind him and the unhealthy looking man came around to stand in front of him, before kneeling before him and looking him over. He didn't understand exactly what the man meant by his statement, but he had been allowed _inside _such a glorious place and he didn't want to ruin it by asking questions. Harry shyly looked away, but a moment later the man grasped his hands firmly and pulled him closer, forcing the large green eyes to meet the narrow ones that were closer now to his eye-level.

Though it was only a clasp of the hands, such affection had been denied to him for so long that the simple touch brought tears to his eyes.

They stung, but Harry kept them from falling.

"Dear, dear, child…" the stranger whispered, "I want to know everything about you. Who your parents are, how you met my companions, how you ended up at my _door…_"

Harry felt the snakes' body begin to uncoil itself from his throat and work its way over to the adult in front of him. Soon Taft and Fere were both curled around their master's shoulders in a much looser embrace than they had given to the bespectacled youth.

"But first," he continued, barely acknowledging the transition his two-headed friend had made, "Tell me your name."

Nodding delicately, the boy answered softly, "H—Harry. Harry Owen."

A slight curl of distaste curled near the other's nose.

Thinking he had somehow said something wrong, he quickly amended, "I—at least, that's the name the Muggles gave me. I…was abandoned as a child. I've been in foster care all my life, s—so I…don't really know my real name, or m—my real parents."

The murky blue eyes widened briefly, before calming into a rather pleased expression.

"Is that so?" He drawled, his eyes bright with an emotion that Harry couldn't place. "That's…perfect then. _Perfect. _You're perfect, my beautiful child."

Harry felt his ears burn at the compliment, opening his mouth to tell the man that he was anything _but _and was abruptly cut off when he was drawn closer and encased in strong, wiry arms. Shocked and more than a little bit nervous, Harry peered up at him at the contact but didn't dare protest. God, when was the last time that he'd been _hugged?_

He felt what must have been Talt brush against his collarbone in reassurance as the towering figure spoke again.

"My name is Rabastan Lestrange, Harry." croaked the man, smiling in a painful fashion that told Harry he wasn't used to the expression, "But you…you will call me _Father_ from now on."

* * *

><p><strong>Again, I apologize for the racial slurs. It was vital part of Gloria's character and Harry's development, so do forgive me for such horrible language. I hope Harry's outrage was enough to stop anyone from being offended.<strong>

**Long chapter! I hope you're happy for it. I'm so happy to have received such inspiring reviews. And so, the Dark Pureblood mentioned in the summary is finally revealed!**

**This is a very special chapter, because it marks the end of OCs! There should be no more need for Original Characters, as Harry's stay in foster care is over. I'm so happy about that! I thank all of you who have stuck with me this far, despite Harry and Peter being the only Canon Characters thus far. From here on Canon characters will be discussed and eventually make appearances. **

**Just for future reference, Harry is now about nine and a half. Feedback makes me do a jig to the tune of the Hogwarts Anthem. And come on, who doesn't want to see that? xD**

**Toes**


	7. Fallacy

**_Shifting of the Plate_**

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><p><strong>Chapter Warnings: <strong>_Racist Language and Undertones._

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><p><strong>Chapter Seven –<strong>Fallacy

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><p>Telling his life story to Rabastan was surprisingly easy to do, though he supposed that the hot meal and delicious juice had helped loosen his tongue.<p>

The food had been cooked by a creature known as a _house elf, _an obedient little thing that went by Frankie, with a deep voice and ears that drooped down passed his shoulders. The meal consisted of probably the most delicious food Harry had ever eaten, even if one looked passed the fact that he was famished.

By the time he had finished, he'd been almost falling asleep in his plate. His stomach full and his tongue wet, he had finally succumbed to exhaustion that he had been unable to sate previously. Satisfied with his tale, the man had taken his hand and led him up the stairs and to a room that he was told would now be his.

If he'd thought that his room at the Lincolns had been spectacular, this room outdid it ten-fold. It had its own bathroom, a huge canopied bed and a little section of couches and chairs with an unlit fireplace before it. The room was in soothing dark blues and greys that reminded him instantly of Rabastan's eyes, but he didn't have much time to dwell on the luxurious accommodations. Toasty and comfortable, he crawled into the bed fully dressed before curling up without even bothering to burrow under the covers and was asleep within seconds.

The next few days were a blur of dreams and half-forgotten conversations with the man that insisted he call him 'father'. He was given medicine by the pint, in vials of all different shapes and sizes and in an odd variety of color.

Potions, Rabastan had called them, _magic _medicine. One to heal his bones, one to reset those that had healed incorrectly, another few to heal bruises and lashing abrasions and another for nutrition that the man claimed he was lacking. Lastly, he'd been given a sleeping potion to help him through the more uncomfortable parts of the process, until two days after arriving on the man's doorstep, he woke up in the softest bed he had ever slept in feeling physically better than he ever had in his life.

Groaning, Harry sat up and rubbed at his eyes, taking a moment to wake up before blindly patting his hand around the bed to find where his glasses had fallen off.

"Here."

The voice startled him, jumping a bit and looking toward the origin of it. The blur of a hand coming towards his face had him recoiling, but a moment later the chill of metal sliding over his ears made him realize that it was just his glasses being placed on his nose for him.

He blinked slowly, adjusting to the crisper world, "Th….thank you, sir."

"_Father,_" Rabastan corrected in a deep monotone, "It is no problem…though your glasses are ghastly. We will have to get you new ones soon."

"Really?" Harry asked before he could stop himself, swallowing thickly and peering up at the man. Rabastan looked to be about the same age as Harry's parents should be, but the only companion he seemed to have was Frankie the house elf and his two-headed snake. He had no wife, but…Harry supposed that a father was certainly better than no parent at all.

"Yes. I won't have my son looking like some sort of ruffian," Rabastan replied, brushing a long fingered hand over the smooth curve of Harry's cheek. "I will never hit you. I will never allow another person to harm you, Darling, do you understand me? Especially not _Muggles._"

He spat the word out as though it left a bad taste in his mouth.

Harry nodded and gave the man before him a smile, watching the glint in Rabastan's eyes turn dark. It left Harry with a nervous feeling squirming in his tummy, that spark in his eye, but a moment later it was gone.

"You and your gifts, Harry, will return my name to its former glory…just being the Father of such a talented wizard, speaking a language that only the Dark Lord could…" There was that same eagerness in the man's voice again. Harry couldn't help but adore the fact that he inspired such enthusiasm in someone.

"Who is the Dark Lord?" Harry inquired, leaning against the finely carved wooden headboard.

Another flicker of surprise ghosted over the man's face, before a frown pursed onto his lips, setting there for a long moment.

"He was a great leader of Purebloods, and he was…defeated about eight years ago." Shaking his head of rugged curls, Rabastan stood up from where he had perched himself on the bed, "It is best if I leave you with that for now. Worry not, young Darling, I will teach you everything there is to know about the Wizarding world and the important people in it. For now, though, Frankie has drawn you a bath. Wash up and change into the clothes I have set on your bed."

"Clothes?" Harry repeated, eyes darting to the neatly folded pile on the edge of the bed, "Wh…where did those come from?"

"I had Frankie measure you while you slept," explained the grey-eyed man, "I have an acquaintance that is quite the accomplished tailor, and he was able to make several more…suitable clothes for you, along with robes and cloaks. They arrived this morning."

"Arrived…" Harry muttered, feeling rather silly for asking, but—"They were delivered? Out here? In the middle of the woods?"

"Of course," Rabastan murmured patiently, "In the wizarding world we use _owls _in order to communicate with one another. However, my house has many wards set up by my brother…owls can only find me if they've been to my cabin before."

_Cabin _seemed like an extremely inadequate word for the man's home, now that Harry had seen how huge it was on the inside. Harry closed his eyes slowly, and just as slowly reopened them, taking it all in.

"Oh."

"Quite," smirked the adult, gesturing toward the room that Harry supposed was the bathroom. He was sure he remembered stumbling there over the past couple days once or twice, but the memories were foggy. "No more questions, Harry, not tonight. I'm sure you are extremely curious about the wizarding world…and if you like, I can begin instructing you tomorrow."

"Y—yes, that sounds brilliant," Harry nodded as he slid out of the bed and straightened his dirty, wrinkled t-shirt against his chest before approaching the bathroom door. He paused in the frame and looked over his shoulder. "We can't start sooner than tomorrow? I…have so many questions to ask you."

"As pleased as I am that you're eager to learn," Rabastan drawled quietly, the corner of his lip quirking up in amusement, "I do not want to overload you with information all at once. You also need to eat _first, _and rest without the aid of a sleeping potion…I can teach you many things, and that which I cannot teach you, I will find someone that can."

Harry's brow puckered in the center, "What is there that you can't teach me, sir?"

"Father," revised the tall male as he adjusted the front of his robes and lifted his chin a bit higher, "I can teach you more magical theory and history and politics than almost anyone else, Darling, however…I am a…something that most call a _Squib. _It means that…I cannot perform magic myself. Because of this disability, there are certain things that I will not be able to teach you."

Harry took that in slowly, eyes wide as he looked at the man. Hadn't the other mentioned that his entire family consisted of only wizards? That Lestrange was a pureblood name? How was that even possible?

Despite his hunger for information, he knew enough to know that asking such intrusive questions would only hurt Rabastan's feelings. He knew what it was, to be different than everyone around him. He could only imagine it would be just as horrible to grow up magic-less in a family of wizards as it was to grow up a freak in a world of only Muggles.

"Oh, okay," the messy haired child leaned against the doorframe in between the bathroom and the bedroom, straightening his glasses bashfully.

"You…are a very precocious child, Harry," Rabastan muttered after a moment, clicking his tongue against his teeth.

Harry didn't understand what that word meant, but it didn't sound like an insult.

"What sorts of things are you gonna hire people for?" Harry questioned once more, though he knew that the other's patience was probably growing thin with his stalling. He supposed, after months of being locked in a dark, cold room by a man that answered every question with a broken bone or two, now that the threat of pain was no longer there, he was exploding with inquiries.

"I will use tutors sparingly…Most spells and curses I can merely instruct you on how to go about them and tell you what they're supposed to do. However, I want you to learn something as soon as possible that only one with magic can pass along," he spoke thoughtfully, as though he was still in the process of considering it. "It will probably take you a long while to perfect it, at your age…a talent called _Occlumency._"

"Octo-mens-y?" Harry repeated, stumbling over the pronunciation, "What is it?"

"For another time, Harry, it's time for your bath now. No more questions about your lessons tonight," the man chastised, nodding once more to the room behind him. "And _do _wash behind your ears. Quite _filthy_, honestly. Off you go."

Harry regarded him for a moment, noting that the joke was awkward and only slightly humorous, as well as more than a little bit forced. Rabastan was not a funny man by any means; the only wrinkles on his face were frown lines on his forehead, not a smile-wrinkle in sight. He ducked his head to hide the grin that stretched onto his lips once again, still amazed that somehow arriving on the man's doorstep had actually made him _happier._ Rabastan treated him like a miracle, like a gift, and even Talia hadn't looked at him with such adoring eyes when he'd first stepped into her house.

"…Yes, erm…Father."

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><p>"If you believe you're ready, Harry, I see no reason to not test you," the man sighed as he walked across the room and over to the leather chair adjacent to where Harry was perched.<p>

February had passed so quickly that there were details that the young boy couldn't quite remember about it. He had been instructed by his adoptive father on several things that he said Purebloods grew up knowing, such as etiquette and conversational techniques in order to keep the talk flowing. After about a week, the man had assigned him his first book to read, deciding that they would be concentrating on the important wizarding families and notable wizards before anything else. The library was the largest room in the house, and it had soon become Harry's favorite. Though he had never been the most studious person, there was little else to do in the home of a wizard. There was chess, books, sleep or food and Harry was only just learning how each piece moved.

The library was done in tones of green, which for some reason made him more comfortable than the blues that most of the other rooms were drenched in. The floor was stone and the windows were rare but where they were present they were stained glass, _moving _stained glass. Harry had learned quickly that pictures, paintings, chess pieces and especially the stained glass windows did not like to simply _sit_ in their places.

In fact, the few times he had played chess with his new guardian, he'd come to find that the white Knight was a bit of a rogue. He liked to move himself when Harry was not paying attention, which both amused and frustrated him.

The stained glass windows could not talk, not like the paintings; they couldn't even leave their frames, like photographs. They seemed to be the most limited art that Harry had seem so far, trapped in their homes with no way out. Though his room had more comfortable accommodations, such as a soft bed, a fire place, and even a window that actually opened, Harry had grown more at home in the corner of the library among the tomes and colorful shifting windows.

"Are you sure you're prepared?" Rabastan drawled as his long, willowy form easily slid into a seated position, glancing at the book that Harry had only just finished.

"Yes, Father," Harry responded eagerly, pulling his legs into his chair and crossing them. The man across from him raised an eyebrow and Harry immediately remembered the brief discussion they'd had about posture. He pulled his legs down so that his toes were dangling several inches from the floor.

"Alright, well, I'll be going over several things from the last book as well," the adult explained, leaning forward to collect the book and set it in his lap, raising his eyes to Harry's.

Harry was determined to make up this time for the last time that he'd finished a book. Being a Squib, he valued education above all else and though he had not said anything about Harry's abysmal studying skills, he had not been pleased. Harry wanted to please him, wanted to make the word _Father _slide more easily off his tongue. Rabastan claimed to have read every book in the entire library, which was thousands upon thousands of books. He honestly didn't doubt it, because Rabastan had taken it upon himself to learn everything that there was to know about magic, even if he could not preform it.

"Let us begin," Rabastan claimed, setting his hands in his lap gently, long spidery fingers overlapping each other.

"Alright," Harry nodded, and then amended quickly, "Yes, Father."

"Very well," He tapped his fingers over the spine of the book and said in a slow monotone, "The most recent Lestrange family members. Name them."

That one was easy.

"Your mother and father, Regor and Spica Lestrange. You and your brother, Rodolphus," Harry answered rather confidently, though he watched the thin figure of his 'father' carefully.

"And?" the grey-eyed man prompted.

"And…?" Who was he missing? Oh—! "And Bellatrix Lestrange, erm, by marriage."

"What have I told you about such _filler _sounds?" The squib _tsk_'ed with distaste, "_Er, Erm, Uh, Ah_…You should speak much more fluidly than that in order to appear fully put together and proper. Take an extra moment to consider your words if you must, rather than sound like you're inarticulate."

"Yes, Father." Harry appeased him, smiling sheepishly.

Rabastan gave him a small quirk of the lips to reassure him, before inquiring, "Shall we continue?"

"Yes, Father."

"Wonderful," Rabastan responded curtly, "Now, why do I ask you only the _recent _members of the family, my Darling?"

"Because," Harry began slowly, because this one was an explanation and he didn't want to stumble over his words again, "Your grandfather cheated on your grandmother with a Mudblood and eventually ran away with her. Your grandmother did not want anyone to know her shame, and so she cursed him to be—infertile?"

"You've pronounced that correctly," Rabastan praised, "Go on."

"She was a powerful witch, and so after raising your father, she put a …a warding sort of curse on the name of every Lestrange born before Regor. The curse makes it so that no one can remember their names, not even your father, so that no one can slander the family. "

"Then?"

"Then? Oh…well, she…killed herself, after that."

The tomes that Harry had been instructed to read so far had not exactly been published books. They were family trees, bias history books that described Pureblood Lines that were given to every member of the family and updated by whoever saw fit to write in them.

Only magic users could burn words into the pages with their wand, and because all the books were connected to one another, though Rabastan could not write in it himself, he could see the entries that his other family members had scribed.

"_Very _good," the man before him murmured, another quirk of the lips telling him that he had done well, "I believe that's enough about the Lestranges, Harry. Our past is a diluted one as best. But I know with you as my son, our _future_ will be…_tremendous_."

Harry felt his ears go hot at the compliment.

"Now, onto the Blacks," Rabastan continued abruptly, straightening his tailored green robes. Harry had noted the change of his appearance since he'd arrived. The man had been rugged, unshaven and almost sickly when the child had fallen into his life, but now he groomed himself, bathed daily and was eating quite a bit more than Harry had seen him consume in the beginning. "List as many members as you can."

Swallowing softly, Harry tilted his head in affirmation and complied.

"Bellatrix is originally a Black. She has…two sisters, Andromeda and Narcissa," Harry paused, remembering briefly a nugget of information from the Black's collective history. "Andromeda married someone _Unpure_, and Narcissa married… Lucian Malfoy or something, right?"

"_Lucius,"_ corrected the older of the two, " 'Or something' is also a phrase you should weed out of your vocabulary, Darling, if at all possible. That sentence could have worked just fine without it."

"Oh," Harry blinked slowly, straightening his glasses. "Of course, I'm sorry, Father."

"Not at all, Darling," Rabastan smiled genuinely for the first time in at least a few weeks. Harry's stomach swelled with pride that he had been able to provoke the expression of his somewhat hardened parental figure once more. "Continue. Who else can you name in the black family?"

After Harry's last failed 'exam', so to speak, he had reread the book on the Blacks and Lestranges in order to prevent making a mockery of himself the next time.

"Well…Andromeda had a daughter, but her name was long and weird. I know their father was named Cygnus, and their mother was…Druella Rosier!" The last name came out slightly higher pitched and excited that he'd remembered it. He settled again, rubbing his hands over his knees, "Cygus had a brother and a sister, Alphard and …Walburga! Alphard rebelled and died before he could have children, and Walburga…she married Orion."

"Oh-ryan," modified the Lestrange.

"Oh-ryan?" Harry's nose wrinkled, annoyed with the spelling of the word, and with himself for mispronouncing it. "But it's spelled _Or-e-on!"_

"Yes, but that's not how it's pronounced," Rabastan's eyes twinkled with amusement, "Just remember it from now on, Harry. Go on. Do you remember the offspring of Orion and Walburga?"

Harry was still slightly irked that the word had tricked him, but he did his best to push it aside.

"Regulus and…Sirius? Am I saying that right?" Harry tested, and sighed with relief when the other nodded. "Oh, and I forgot. Narcissa has a son around my age, doesn't she? D….Dra…"

"Draco."

"Yes, that's it!" Harry snapped his fingers together and smiled to himself, before squinting his eyes and biting his lip in thought for a long moment. "That's all I remember."

"Those are really all that are important for the moment. Eventually when you know all of their names by heart, I'll start telling you more about them, such as their political leanings and occupations," Rabastan started to preach, though Harry couldn't think why he would need to know about boring things like that. "For now, though, please tell me what you've read about Tom Marvolo Riddle."

The book that Rabastan held in his lap was really more of a journal. It was only a few dozen pages long and scribbled in almost-neat but slightly shaky writing. His adoptive father had told him that he had written it himself, but he had not yet told him why.

"He's, erm…_sorry,_" Harry winced, biting down on his tongue and going pink in the cheeks, "He was a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry almost fifty years ago. He was born on December thirty-first, 1926. His mother was Merope Gaunt and his father was a Muggle, Tom Riddle. Merope was thought to have coerced or blackmailed, or possible used a love potion on the man, because he left her while she was pregnant."

Harry paused, then looked down at his lap, "Though I suppose he could have just found out she was a witch. That's all the reason most muggles need…"

Rabastan was silent for a long moment.

Finally, he managed to mutter, "Harry, you're a wonderful boy. You're so unique and powerful. I don't want you to ever feel like those worthless muggles made you feel, do you understand?"

Harry raised his green eyes to meet the man's coyly, fidgeted with his glasses before assenting, "Yes, Father."

There was another stretch of quiet, before he just continued with what he knew about the elusive 'Tom Riddle'.

"He attended Hogwarts and was in Slytherin House," He remember that there were four, but at the moment the only other one that came to mind was _Gryffindor._ "He was a Prefect and Head Boy, which are honors. He was also top of his class, and went on to work at a shop called…Burken and Borges?"

"Borgin and Burkes." Was the soft response. "Go on."'

Harry went on to describe the hair color, skin color and eye color, as well as aspects of his personality. He was said to be polite, but falsely so, using flattery and disingenuous kindness to manipulate those around him. In his fifth year at school he had received an award for 'Services to the School' for a reason that had not been stated, and had earned the respect of almost everyone by the end of his school years. He had been raised in a Muggle Orphanage after his mother had died giving birth to him, and had apparently taken after his mother in looks, if the photo of Merope attached to one of the pages was anything to go by.

"Very good," The man approved, "But what of his life after his job at Borgin and Burke's?"

"Oh," the dark-haired boy paused, rolling the question over in his mind. After a long moment of thought, he decided on, "I dunno."

"You _don't _know?" Rabastan articulated his words in a fashion that said he disapproved with the slang, without really having to say it.

"I don't know," the child repeated, taking the amendment to heart.

"Why don't you?"

"Well, because no one does."

"Is that a fact?" Rabastan inquired wryly.

"Yes. He quit Borgin and Burkes and just…disappeared. He said he was going to travel the world, or som- but …but no one ever saw him again after that," Harry elucidated, and was quite happy with himself for it.

"Excellent," his 'father' commended him once more, and warmth almost immediately bubbled up into his stomach.

"But, Father, I have a question," the boy started up rather suddenly, as it had fluttered across his mind several times as he had read and reread the notes about the remarkable boy. Remarkable, but even so, he had disappeared—how, exactly, would it help him to learn about his life? "Why is it I'm learning about Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

With a long, slow motion, the figure before him leaned forward to deposit the small book on the coffee table that separated the two of them. Then, after a drawn out moment without answering, Rabastan sat up straight once more and brushed a curl behind his ear. Then he pinched his chin between his index finger and thumb thoughtfully.

"You see, Harry," He began, "I left several facts out of that collection…as I told you. It was written by me. It is …all the information that most of the world does not already _know _about him."

Harry didn't understand. Almost everything about Tom Riddle, though exceptional, was also…mundane. His grades, his childhood, his achievements…why would _those _aspects be secrets?

"Not many know what you know about him. What they do know is that he is monumentally powerful and drenched in Dark Magic…" He met the youth's eyes firmly, "As well as being a Parselmouth."

Harry couldn't hide the widening of his eyes as he declared, "But you said that I was the only Parselmouth since—"

"The Dark Lord." Rabastan confirmed, bringing a hand up to rub at his temple. He peered at Harry coolly from his seat, crossing one long leg over the other elegantly, "Tom Riddle disappeared and returned with a different name. He was a halfblood, but he is our _Lord, _and you will tell know one of his heritage. His power and ideals are true, which is all that matters to _me._ You will learn about him next, his life after Tom Riddle, his accomplishments and his…defeat. He is now known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to most, but his loyal followers refer to him as the Dark Lord."

He took another break to level Harry with his stare seriously, "As I do, so shall you."

Harry swallowed as his stomach dipped lower within him for a reason he couldn't explain.

"Yes, Father, of…of course."

Rabastan's mouth stretched slowly, into a not-quite smile, before standing up abruptly and starting over to the book shelf in order to retrieve his next assignment.

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><p>Two months rolled by, packed with learning more about the family dynamics of Purebloods and information that Harry was told he would be questioned about continually to make sure it all stuck. He was still working on etiquette, posture and what he liked to call 'How To Be A Snob' rules within the confines of his mind. However, despite the fact that he was still in the process of learning, after a couple habit forming months, he had practically cut all 'filler' words from his vocabulary. At first he'd have to take long pauses before speaking to figure out what exactly he wanted to say before he said it, but as time passed the words flowed more and more easily off his tongue.<p>

When he was excited or shocked he still tended to stammer, which Rabastan said was _'precious' _but would not be '_suitable' _for the young man he would soon be growing into.

They had only just began to learn about basic spells a few days before when Rabastan had announced at dinner that he had finally found a teacher that would instruct him on Occlumency. Harry hadn't the first clue even now as to what it was, because his mind had already been jam packed with material on the Pureblood families and the few spells that he had begun to practice. Talt and Fere often joined him in the library when he was studying, and more often than not snatched food off of his plate at the dinner table when they thought that Rabastan wasn't looking.

A week later, one of the fireplaces in the entrance hall burst to life as Harry was in the middle of eating breakfast. He heard the sound of sharp heels against the marble floor as someone stumbled, and though Rabastan had explained that Fireplaces were used as communication and transportation in the wizarding world, he had never seen it in action.

He dropped the piece of bacon that he had only halfway eaten, sprinting passed the unmoving figure of the man working on his own breakfast. He skidded to a stop with a fantastic grin on his face at the sight of a young woman brushing ashes off of her skirt and topcoat as the green flames behind her faded into nothing.

She was a brunette, her hair pulled back into a taut ponytail, a wholesome looking woman, if a bit on the stern side. Her blue eyes, the color of an unpolluted sea, peered around the room she had found herself in, adjusting her hand on the handle of her trunk as her gaze landed on Harry.

"Hello," Harry smiled at her, taking a step forward, "I'm Harry…Harry Lestrange. Pleasure to meet you."

"…Hello," She responded, her eyes darting skeptically toward his shoulders. Harry knew that was where Talt and Fere was curled happily.

"Don't worry, they won't bite you. I won't let them," Harry assured her pleasantly, "You never told me your name, you know—"

"Don't feel too bad, Harry, Darling," came Rabastan's voice from behind him, making the young boy twist his head to the side to look over his shoulder at the tall figure. "Mudbloods don't have any concept of manners. I wouldn't expect too much of her on that end."

Harry blinked, looking back at the woman, who's knuckles had gone white in her grip on the trunk.

She was a Mudblood?

But she seemed so normal_. _He'd never heard Rabastan say the word before, but the tone in the volumes that he'd read had implied that the word meant that people born from Muggles were vile and filthy. She seemed nice enough, _and_ well groomed.

The young woman seemed to bristle slightly, but controlled herself and turned her attention back to Harry, "I'm Mary Cattermole, Mr. Lestrange. I'll be teaching you Occlumency over the next six months."

Harry took in the words, nostalgic at the name '_Mary', _his beautiful little foster sister that was a year behind him now—then he realized what she had called him and sputtered indignantly, "Mr. Lestrange? I—I'm just Harry, really—"

"Harry," Rabastan cut him off curtly, "Collect yourself in front of our guest, please."

"Sorry, Father," Harry felt his ears go hot and hoped they didn't get as bright red as he thought they might have, "I…just mean that I'm younger than you, Ma'am, and—"

"No, no, Darling. The Mudblood will be calling you Mr. Lestrange, and she will be calling me _Master _Lestrange, as per our contract, isn't that right?" queried the tall figure not far to Harry's left.

"That is… _correct_, Master LeStrange," The woman shifted and lifted her chin slightly, before taking control of the conversation with a light tone to her voice, though her lips grew small with annoyance. "I have a book that I would like to give Harry to read three chapters of before the night is out, if that is alright with you?"

"Certainly," drawled the Pureblood in return.

"Wait," Harry said quickly, raking his fingers through his hair as he was somewhat frazzled, "I…Father, you said it's something that will be hard for me to learn, especially since I'm a kid, right? If…if she's only going to be here for six months, then what if I can't-?"

Mary opened her mouth to respond, but Rabastan was cutting her off before she could manage a sound.

"Don't worry, Darling, not many could learn it so quickly," He brought his hand to Harry's face in a tender fashion as he spoke, shifting through the dark, disheveled tresses. His digits brushed over the boy's left ear and moved to massage his earlobe slowly. "Occlumency is _incredibly_ difficult, even for adults, but at the end of six months you'll know everything there is to know about it and have enough of a base for it that you'll be able to do the rest on your own. It takes practice…which you can do _without_ her help."

The woman seemed startled and disturbed for a moment, before looking away firmly.

"Yes….okay," Harry nodded as the hand curled around the nape of his neck in a way that had him shivering. His brilliant eyes shown up at the man that had taken him in as he spoke once more, "I'll do my best, Father."

"Of course you will, Dearest Harry," Rabastan stooped to press his chapped lips against his forehead, before releasing him entirely. His voice turned venomous as he set his eyes back on the female in the room, "Our house elf will show you to your room. _Frankie!_"

Harry was always startled by the _pop_ that echoed through the air and the way that the house elf suddenly appeared. He was rather sure he would never get used to it. And to think, Rabastan had even mentioned once that Wizards could transport themselves in that way as well—it was difficult to conceive such a thing.

Such was magic, the child supposed.

"Frankie will be showing Mrs. Cattermole this way to the guest room," The elf said in a soft, subservient tone that had always made Harry feel as though he'd said something hurtful. The floppy pointed ears wobbled as he went to take the bag from her.

His Occlumency instructor frowned, but allowed him to take her luggage, before beginning to follow the elf beneath the grand staircases and to the hallway hidden behind it.

"Don't you worry, Harry, I gave her a downstairs bedroom. We will, unfortunately, be sharing a house with her for quite some time but that doesn't mean we have to breathe her _air _for very long_,"_ Rabastan spoke loud enough for the retreating woman to hear and gave a dry chuckle, to which Harry could only smile weakly in return. "Come, you should finish your breakfast, Darling. Your lessons with the Mudblood won't start until tomorrow."

Harry started back toward the dining room, watching the woman's back curiously until she vanished from his view.

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><p><strong>Terribly sorry about the wait. I have two jobs now and a bunch of obligations, but this story is not abandoned. The amount of reviews I got was astounding, and I thank each and every one of you.<strong>

**It will be explained in more detail later why Rabastan hired a Muggleborn, and just where Mary fits in and why she took the job. By the way, Mary Cattermole is not an OC, to any of you that read her name and thought she was. She is the Muggleborn who was on trial in the seventh book, the one whose husband Ron was Polyjuiced as. She's obviously younger here, but she's still married, which is why she doesn't have a random maiden name because JKR gave no such thing—a newlywed, actually.**

**She won't be around long, so I took some liberties with her character since JKR doesn't give too many details.**

**Most of you didn't figure out that Rabastan is a Squib in my story—I hinted a bit in the last chapter and it was my Story Warnings in the first chapter. This chapter spells it out for you. This is why he is not in Azkaban. As a Squib, he did not attend Hogwarts and he certainly wasn't accepted into Voldemort's ranks. **

**Feedback is what I smell in the Amortentia potion! So—in the name of love, review! (I just keep getting more corny, don't I? ;D )**

**Toes**


	8. Cognizance

_**Shifting Of the Plate**_

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><p><strong>Chapter Warnings: <strong>__Racism/Bigotry and Mostly Implied Child__ Abuse__.__

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><p><strong>Chapter Eight – <strong>Cognizance

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><p>Harry was sitting quietly in his room, where Mary had asked him to wait for her. Winter had faded to the beginnings of Spring, but Harry still kept his fireplace roaring at almost all times.<p>

He'd had read almost half of the book she had given him, and reread the first chapters that she had actually assigned twice more. Harry was not naturally a very smart child, perhaps above average, but his memory was not the best…common sense was where he tended to prevail, not memorization. In order to even be passable on the auditory examinations that Rabastan gave him he had to read and reread several times, and come up with little games and songs in order to remember them all.

The only way he'd remembered the fact that the Dark Lord (whose real name he had come to realize in books alone) was defeated by a man named Peter Pettigrew was because he had made up a silly little song to the tune of 'Row, Row, Row Your Boat'.

"_Pete, Pete, Pettigrew,_

_In nineteen eighty-one,_

_He killed the Dark Lord, Voldemort,_

_The Killing Curse undone."_

Harry didn't think it was very good, so he kept that sort of thing to himself. Rabastan wouldn't be very amused that he had used the Dark Lord's name in such a way. He'd learned several things over the last couple months about the Dark Lord's history, such as his Death Eaters, and of course more about the Man-Who-Lived. Rabastan always spoke the man's name with venom, though Harry could only figure he'd done it completely by accident, if the books were anything to go by.

He'd learned that his father's brother, and his brother's wife, were in Azkaban. Her cousin, Sirius Black, had been released from Azkaban after five years, after having apparently betrayed his best friend to the Dark Lord. It was the longest sentence the Ministry had been allowed to give him for simply breaking a promise to a friend in a fashion that resulted in their deaths. Rabastan had also told him that Sirius Black had run away after being released and hadn't shown his face to anyone since.

He'd been told that a child had died.

Harry figured that Sirius Black deserved much more than five years in prison.

Sitting in the room quietly and tapping his fingers on the cover of his book, he was started out of his thoughts when there was a knock on his door.

"Come in!" Harry called to the woman, who proceeded to open the door and do just that.

When she entered the room for their first lesson, he was struck again with how small she was. A startlingly petite woman, only a little more than a head taller than Harry himself, though she carried herself as if she was waiting to be under attack.

He watched as she approached him, standing with nothing but her wand clasped in her hand.

"Let's get down to business then," She spoke curtly, never meeting Harry's eyes, "Did you read what I asked you to yesterday morning?"

"Yes, ma'am," Harry countered simply.

"Your lessons will take place every say, just after breakfast when your mind is rested and fed," She continued, sounding rather like someone that was reading a script that they had written down and rehearsed. "Your father has agreed to this schedule. Is it agreeable to you?"

"Sure," Harry nodded, though honestly a class so difficult first thing in the morning while he was still groggy didn't sound _fantastic. _"I mean, yes, ma'am."

"_Super_," She deadpanned, tapping her wand against the palm of her hand, "I simply what to test you today, to figure out where to begin, hm? First, I'll ask you about what you read last night, and then I'll preform Legilimency on you to figure out how weak you are."

"I'm not weak," Harry grumbled, frowning deeply at her. He saw her small mouth twitch a bit, and knew he had won her over a little bit more. Though, he couldn't imagine how.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, Mr. Lestrange, but your mind _is._ All those that have not learned Occlumency like I have are susceptible. As it is a not a common art form, and is not taught in schools, therefore you would be amazed how many people can be targeted mentally." Mary informed him gently, and Harry wasn't nearly as offended this time.

"How did you learn it, if it's so rare?" the child inquired curiously.

"That's a story for another time," retorted the lady, instead putting the tip of her wand against her knuckles, "Let's not beat around the bush. What is Occlumency?"

Harry took a deep breath and then recited, "The act of magically closing one's mind to _Leg…Legil…imency."_

"Correct," She responded shortly, barely taking a moment to pause, "And the Etymology of the word?"

"The what?"

"The Etymology of the word. What are the basic roots of the word—what does it mean?"

"Oh," Harry started at her, dumbfounded and feeling ridiculous. He didn't remember reading that anywhere. Why was it important? "I…don't know, ma'am."

"It is on the inside of the cover of the book," She sighed, lifting a hand to her head and smoothing it over her dark, neatly pulled back strands, "Open the book and read it to me."

Harry did so, flipping the pages out of the way and finding it rather easily.

"Okay, I found it….It is …Occlude, which means 'to conceal' and 'mens' which means 'mind'." Emerald eyes shot up, asking, "So…to conceal the mind?"

"Exactly. Shut the book now, Mr. Lestrange."

He really hated being called that, but he couldn't exactly ask her to go against his father's wishes.

"Now," Cattermole started again, "What is the first step on should do before preparing to learn Occlumency?"

"Meditation," Harry answered, glad that he had gotten something write after his failure at the last question. He hadn't even thought about looking on the inside of the cover page.

"Correct," replied the woman without much vigor, "What is that Occlumency will help you do?"

Harry had to stop and think about his words before he responded, rubbing at his knees with the palm of his hands a bit nervously. The concept of 'mind-reading' should have been laughable to him. The fact that it was _real, _however, was…really quite terrifying.

"To…hide emotions and memories from someone that is looking to them. You can sort of steer them away from the memories you don't want them to know about," He answered, pleased with himself.

However, after a moment, the woman hadn't responded with her customary 'correct', and he grew worried.

"R….right?" Harry inquired sheepishly, causing the woman to shake her head and speak up after a moment of only regarding him quietly.

"That's technically correct, but you should not know that much," Mary Cattermole gripped her wand with both hands, "You read ahead, didn't you, Mr. Lestrange?"

Harry flushed, combing his fingers through his hair, "Was I not supposed to?"

Mary rolled her shoulders and turned her back to him briefly as she walked closer to the fire, hugging her sweater closer to her, "It's not a bad thing, no. However, it's not what I want you to concentrate on. Eventually, after _years_ of practice, you will be able to do that. But right now we will be focusing on keeping your mind _blank _when someone attacks you mentally. That's all I will have time to instruct you on."

"Oh, okay," Harry bit down on his bottom lip, small teeth pressing firmly into the flesh of his bottom lip for a moment. He released it a moment later to repeat her words back to her. "Blank. Right."

She nodded softly and for a long moment merely stared into the fire.

Harry watched her, finding himself thinking that she was really quite lovely, before quickly turning his eyes away when she spun back to face him. His cheeks felt a little warm, but he fidgeted with his glasses to hide it and then straightened his posture in a mimicry of how Rabastan tented to sit.

"Alright, Mr. Lestrange, I'm going to attempt to see into your mind now," Mary spoke in a rather small, almost soothing voice. She spoke as though she ought to be singing a lullaby and it made Harry grow intensely fond of her for a brief, fleeting moment.

Quietly, he responded, "Yes, alright."

"Are you ready?"

"Yes, Ma'am.

"Good then." The only reason Harry knew that she was taking a soundless breath, was because he saw the rise and fall of her chest. She aimed her wand, and without further delay, she muttered, "_Legilimens_!"

Harry was shocked at the probing sensation that entered his mind. It was like he was suddenly in two separate worlds, one firmly in the present, on the couch in the home of his adoptive father, and the other was _in the basement, starving, wondering sorrowfully if he would be left for dead and figuring that if that was so at least he'd get to meet his parents—_

He felt the fabric of the cushion in his fist as the memories shifted, like the dexterous hands of a magician sifting cards, _and he was in the bottom bunk of a bed in St. Peter's, listening tearfully to the sound of a girl whimpering in the next room and he knew Jay was up to it, he knew it—_

—_Mr. Damon backhanding him when he refused to eat another child's food—_

—_watching Miss Charlotte laugh and scowling at her as she pinched his cheeks—_

—_Miss Charlotte cooking breakfast—_

—"_How do you like it here, hm, Harry? Fillmore's treating you well? Oh, that's wonderful."—_

—_Miss Charlotte falling to the floor, unmoving—_

—_Mr. Damon stepping on the hoe and hitting himself in the face—_

—_Fillmore kicking him until he thought his ribs were going to rip through his heart—_

—"_You're a bloody cockroach, aren't you?"—_

—"_Harry, eat your vegetables."—_

The last thing Harry saw was Miss Charlotte's smile before the sensation, like a ghost hand in his brain moving around as it pleased, was gone. His hands shook in their grip on the couch and his vision cleared behind his circular glasses.

Rabastan kept on commenting on how he needed new ones, and though he was attached to this pair, he knew that he would never argue with his father. He'd done too much for him to fight him in…anything, let alone little things like glasses.

Memories like that, of Mr. Damon and Fillmore and Gloria and all the caseworkers that could have helped. All the people he'd seen hurt, and Rabastan had done so _very _much for him. Rabastan _loved _him, wanted to be his parent like no one else could.

Gods, he was crying.

He took off his glasses and wiped at his eyes as quickly as he could, though he knew that Mary had already seen. Harry sniffled softly and only put his glasses on again once the tears had stopped coming, shifting and rubbing at his aching head. That had not been pleasant, not even a _little _bit-and he was supposed to go through that daily with this woman for six months?

Harry supposed it could only get better.

The sound of a throat clearing caught his attention, looking at the woman for the first time in several minutes. Her eyes looked suspiciously red as well, but Harry didn't comment on it.

"I was training to be an Unspeakable."

The words didn't compute even a little bit in Harry's tired brain.

"Erm, what?" He mumbled, cursing himself silently for using a 'filler' sound and for sounding like an idiot on top of it. "I mean…you were training to be a….a _what?_"

"An Unspeakable," She repeated, putting her wand into the pocket of her black robes and crossing her arms over her chest. "It is a section of the Ministry of Magic. It does…well, many things, I won't go into it. But it's a very strenuous job, and I was training for three years to go into it. One part of the program was Occlumency and Legilimency…the title 'Unspeakable' means that, just as it sounds, they are not allowed to _speak _of what goes on in their jobs. Unspeakables need to have secure minds so that someone may not just _peak _into the secrets of the Ministry whenever they feel like it."

"Oh…okay, I get it," Harry commented softly, still rubbing at his head, though that did little to stop the pounding, "So you're…you're one of those then? An Unspeakable?"

"No," Mary replied, shaking her head tersely, "I was in training to be. I, however, was considered unfit. I was an excellent Occlumens and Legilimens, it was not my _mind_ that was at fault, but my body. I could not…keep up, when it came to the more physically demanding aspects of the job."

Nodding in understanding, Harry asked cautiously, "So…they fired you then?"

"Yes," his teacher exhaled, slowly, twisting her hands together as she explained quietly, as though not entirely speaking to him, "Though, part of me regrets attempting that line of work…I met my husband through classes at the Ministry. He was an entry-level Curse Breaker at the time. I would have never met him if it was not for those classes."

He was quiet for a long moment, before asking with a frown, "Then why do you regret it at all? If it's how you met your husband…"

"Because," Mary told him seriously, her dark eyes averting as she shifting from one comfortably heeled shoe to another, "If I had not taken those classes, I would have never have learned Occlumency, and then taking this…_wretched _job would have never been an option."

The boy stared at her for a long while, not sure at all what to say.

What was wrong with this job? His father didn't seem to like her much, but he was barely ever around. She didn't _have _to take the job, surely? So was Harry doing something wrong, that had caused her to be so unhappy with her situation?

He couldn't think of what. He'd only spoken to her for a few minutes the morning before and barely an hour now, so how exactly could she despise her job _already? _Did being called a Mudblood really irk her so badly?

"I want you to think of something," She spoke again suddenly, breaking Harry from his reverie, "Something small and inanimate. It can be anything, really, and tonight I want you to close your eyes and sit quietly and think only of that one thing for as long as he can. Tomorrow we'll work more on meditation and I will attempt to invade your mind once more."

A beat. "Understand?"

Harry lowered his eyes and glared at his fists, that had balled up in the front of his robes without him noticing.

"Yes, ma'am."

With that, she started walking to the door. The heels of her shows echoed against the floor louder than they should have, his ears echoing the sound in his still aching mind. He stood up after a moment before she had managed to leave, stopping her with an abrupt question.

"Why do you dislike it here so much?" Harry murmured, looking at her back as she paused at the door.

"I didn't expect this job to make me happy," was the young woman's response, evading the question so skillfully the child didn't even notice it had been done, "In fact, I knew it would be horrible…considering who the boss is."

He wasn't sure that he liked her talking that way about his father.

"Then why did you take the job then?" Harry demanded in a whisper, in order to control his temper in front of the woman. His father had always told him that showing such strong emotion was giving away weakness. He hadn't quite gotten the hang of that yet.

Mary hesitated for a long moment before muttering under her breath.

"For the _money_."

Then she was gone and Harry was left to stew in his frustration, the throbbing of his head not helping matters.

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><p>"Now that we've gone over plenty of basic spells, I want to start teaching you Dark spells, Harry. Do you think you can manage that?"<p>

"Of course, Father, but…when will I actually be able to _do _magic? Not that learning about it isn't fun, but…"

"But practicing wand movements with a mere stick is underwhelming."

"Yeah. I mean—yes, Father."

"I understand, Harry, but it's simply too difficult at the moment for me to procure a wand for you. Soon enough, my Darling."

"But even when I do get a wand, won't other people know?"

"You mean the Ministry?"

"Well…yes, I suppose. I read in one of the books that there's an 'underage magic' Law of some sort. Isn't there?"

"There is, Harry, but you must remember that I do not have magic. I am not in the perimeters of Wizarding Britain, either. There is no way for the Ministry to detect magic in this obscure location unless they were particularly looking for it."

"Oh…Okay, I see. So once I do get a wand, I'll be able to practice all I like?"

"More than all you like, Dearest. I'll be drilling your lessons into you until you start cursing the very wand you wish for now."

"I'm trembling, Father."

"You should be."

"It's like an earthquake for Talt and Fere, I promise you, Father."

"_What is he saying, Talt?"_

"_Something snarky. I don't understand it all…nip his ear, then Harry will translate for us."_

"_You nip his ear, I'm comfortable."_

"_You are closer!"_

"Such snarky wit coming from your pretty mouth surprises me, Harry."

"It shouldn't, really, should it, Father? _You better not nip me!_"

"I suppose not. Don't you smirk at me!"

"I'm not smirking!"

"Back-talking me now, are you?"

"Am not!"

"…I'm not going to fight with you like a child. You've gotten me far off track, and you have things to _learn._"

"I've been learning non-stop these last few weeks, Father. Don't I deserve a break?"

"Perhaps. I suppose it depends on if that Mudblood has even been teaching you anything these last few weeks."

"She has! Really, I'm getting a little better already. At clearing my mind. Not as easy as you'd think."

"I don't doubt it."

"Headaches afterward are killer."

"Are they? We can't have that. I'll owl a friend of mine to send some potions for that then."

"Oh! The one from the Prince family, right? Septimus? You're in touch with him, you said?"

"Occasionally. He brews potions that I cannot brew myself and is good enough to send them to me so that I keep in stock. And it's _Severus, _Harry, Severus Snape."

"Right. Severus Snape then, sorry. Are there a lot of potions that you can brew without magic?"

"A fair few, but a good portion of them are useless. I'll teach them to you eventually, but I don't enjoy Potion Making like Snape does."

"I see…Doesn't really seem like it'd be all that fun. Sounds like _cooking, _from what I've read."

"You've gotten me off topic again, you horrid boy. I am attempting to start your Dark Magic education and you continue to ramble on about the Mudblood's lessons and _potions. _What _am_ I going to do with you?"

"I'm wicked, I know, Father. You'll have to punish me somehow—perhaps sentence me to extra lessons with Mrs. Cattermole."

"Perish the thought, Harry. You spend too much time away from me as it is. _Perish _the thought."

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><p>Harry had noticed that his father often talked to himself when he thought that no one was looking.<p>

He had seen the man do it before, but he hadn't really thought much of it. At first, he'd assumed that he was talking to Talt and Fere even though they could not understand him –the snake heads had informed him that was a common habit of Rabastan's—but lately Harry had been catching him doing it when Talt and Fere were secured around his neck.

He went from mumbling softly to hissing viciously under his breath, as though arguing with himself.

Although slightly amusing, it was also a bit disconcerting the boy to see the other like that. Rabastan usually composed himself flawlessly, though Harry guessed that because the man had been doing it alone, or at least thought that he was, then it was alright. After all, all the etiquette that Harry had been taught over the last five months of living with Rabastan had taught him one thing above all.

It was all about appearances.

"No, no, no, you can't, not yet, not _yet, _just a little longer…"

Harry ignored his father's voice as he passed his study and put the voice out of his mind, stroking Talt and Fere's conjoined body idly as he walked by and started to his own room to meditate. He was getting better every day and even though Mary had told him that he was far from a natural, she also had informed him that she was proud of how far he had come in such a short span of time.

Though she could be a stern woman at times, at others she could be compassionate.

Unfortunately, for the past week or so she had become ill and had been bedridden with only Frankie and Harry to tend to her needs. He felt bad for her, she seemed like such a frail woman already, and he knew what it was like to be confined to a bed. Not for sickness, but just locked in the basement for days and days, forgotten about…

Harry would make sure that Mary was not forgotten about.

He couldn't wait to impress her with how far he'd come just from practicing on his own.

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><p>Harry's tenth birthday was an extravagant affair, at least as far as the child was concerned. Rabastan had had Frankie decorate the entirety of the entrance hall to imitate a Quidditch field, though of course it was scaled down a few hundred times. Even so, Harry was fascinated with it all, looking at it in awe. He had only mentioned that he had begun reading about Quidditch in the library on his free time and become somewhat obsessed with finding out all he could about the sport.<p>

Rabastan didn't allow him outside of the cabin unless he was watching him and making sure he didn't wander too far away, but this inside field was a close second.

There were more presents than he'd gotten even when he was at the Lincoln's home. Miss Charlotte had never been able to afford too much, but she always made sure that there was something special going on for his birthday.

He received books and clothes as the brunt of it, all of the tomes thick and mostly about Quidditch or Spells (which meant, Harry knew, that they would soon begin to learn practical magic, though strangely a wand had not been one of his gifts, like he had suspected.) and the clothes were all perfectly tailored, expensive looking. Most of them were had dark green seems, as well, almost perpetually bringing out the color of his eyes.

A pair of glasses had been among the presents as well, this time though they were rectangular rather than the circular lenses that Rabastan said he found atrocious. His final present had been a Nimbus 2000, and though Harry didn't know just how top of the line it was, just having a broomstick was enough to embrace his father with all the exuberance he had in his small body.

After that, he'd flown around the room with the play snitch and quaffles that his father had gotten him. Rabastan even got Frankie to spell a bludger to go after Harry at half strength. It was the highlight of Harry's stay at the cabin, which was certainly saying something.

His birthday, however, also marked the near end of Mary's time with them. She seemed mostly healed from her bout of sickness a couple months before, but still seemed unnaturally pale and even more fragile that she had started out looking.

There were only two more weeks left of her stay, and she was resting now in her room, having stayed cooped away for most of Harry's two-man party downstairs.

He'd told his father that he was going to get washed up for dinner, but had instead found his way to Mary's room to check on her. Harry knocked a few times, fiddling with the hem of his shirt as he waited for her to beckon him in.

"Ma'am?" He called softly, through the door, but heard nothing, and creaked it open just slightly so that he could peek through. It was a small, plain room in comparison to Harry's, the young boy noted as he looked inside. He hadn't been in it before, though he'd watched her disappear inside it and seldom leave apart from her lessons.

"Maaa'am?" He called again, and heard her cough from the bed. "You're sleeping? It's not even dinner time yet."

"Mhm," She grunted from the pile of covers, waving a slender hand at him flippantly, "Not everyone is as…vibrant as you are, Harry."

Harry grinned softly, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him.

"What…what are you doing in here? Shouldn't…the birthday boy be opening presents?" She asked, her voice wavering a bit tiredly as she burrowed further into the covers.

"How'd you know it was my birthday?" Harry asked, plopping down on the armchair. It was dusty and uncomfortable, so it didn't take long for the dark-haired child to stand back up.

"You've been telling me every day for the past few weeks," She muttered wryly.

"Oh," Harry flushed, rubbing the back of his neck, "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. It's normal for a child to be excited about their birthday. You're in double digits now, too."

"I know!" Harry explained, then bit his lip when he heard himself, moseying over to the bed slowly. "All of my presents were really cool. Hey, you know, I dunno if you have any kids. Do you?"

"I don't. Not yet, anyway. I've only been married a year, after all."

"Oh, right. But…you want kids, right?

"I want children, you know. I was hoping I was pregnant before I came here, but it didn't work out that way…we couldn't afford it, anyway, at the time."

"But now you can? Since dad is paying you for teaching me, right?"

"…Yes, that's right."

Cheerfully, Harry pulled himself onto the foot of the bed to sit down, "I think you'd be a brilliant mom."

There was only quiet that responded to him as he shifted to get himself more comfortable on the bed, pulling the golden snitch that his father had given him out of his pocket. It was his favorite trinket so far. Not that the books weren't nice and the broom wasn't fantastic, but something about the snitch glimmering in his hand felt right. Even in his small palm its wings slowly flickering as though to try to escape, jerking around as though it had a personality.

As much as Harry knew about the possibilities of magic, it wouldn't surprise him if it did.

"Thank you, Harry. You're a wonderful boy. It's been a pleasure teaching you."

"You've still got a couple more weeks," Harry responded, looking at the clock on her wall. It was an analogue clock, a testimony to her being Muggleborn, though it did not inspire the sneer in Harry that it should have.

"Yes, that I do. I've got to get you good and ready to practice on your own before I leave."

Green eyes found the bump in the covers with a frown, "So what's that mean?"

"I'll have to drill you even harder than usual to make sure you don't slip up, obviously."

Harry groaned even while he smiled.

* * *

><p>A week later, Harry awoke to the sound of several thuds. The first one had him stirring, and the slow beat of the rest of them awoke in him a curiosity that outweighed is inclination to just ignore it and doze off again.<p>

_Thud…thud…thud…thud…_

It was an almost exact beat, a couple seconds apart, over and over again at least fifteen times by now. With a moan of tiredness he found himself rubbing at his eyes and pushing himself up and out of bed. His bare feel hit the cool floor of his room and he raked his hands over his face as he found his way almost blindly to his glasses before his eyes adjusted to the dark and he reached the door without incident. After that, the hallway was not far behind and the thudding continued the entire way.

What in the world could it be?

His first thought was that Frankie was doing something or another to punish himself. He remembered him hitting his head against the wall one day when he had made Harry's eggs too runny, forcing Harry to console him quickly before he really hurt himself. But would the sounds be so steady if it was really Frankie punishing himself for something?

He didn't think so.

_Thud….thud….thud…thud…Thump._

The last sound was a little more final than those before it had been, which made the mystery even more prevalent in the ten-year-old's mind. Finally he found his way to the large staircase where the candles were more widespread than the hallway that led to his room. His eyes zoned in on the moving figure at the bottom of the staircase, grasping the banister and leaning over to get a better look.

"Father?" Harry asked in surprise as the lanky figure of the squib came into his view. He rubbed at his sleep-ridden eyes once again and peering down at him.

"Harry….did I wake you?" Came the other's raspy voice from his position. He stood up straight, and in doing so he reminded Harry that he had been bent over for some reason just before. When he looked down, he saw a rather large trunk at his father's feet and realized suddenly where the thumping had come from.

"You were dragging that down the stars?" He muttered, cocking his head to the side slightly, "What for?"

"Well, Harry," Rabastan frowned, clasping his fingers together and pausing as thought considering whether or not to tell him, "I am…burying some trash in the yard."

"Why so late though?" Harry asked, starting down the stairs toward him

"I had forgotten about it. I awoke in the night and remembered, so I thought I might as well get it done now, lest it slip my mind again," replied his father nonchalantly, holding out a hand to welcome Harry to edge of the stairs. "Since you are already awake, would you like to help me?"

"But I don't have any shoes on."

"No worries, my Darling, you won't need to leave the porch."

"Alright then, father." Harry agreed, moving to help him with the trunk, but Rabastan placed a hand on his shoulder, halting him in his tracks. "Don't you want me to help you carry it?"

"No, no, Harry, not at all. It's much too heavy for you. I'll get this, I have something else for you to help with…ah…" Rabastan was shifting his robes and pulling something out that at first Harry had a hard time recognizing. When he realized what it was, though, he yelped with joy.

"A wand!"

"Yes, Dearest, a wand."

"For me?"

"Who else?"

"But my birthday was _last _week," Harry informed him, reaching out for the slender, cherry wood wand. Rabastan smirked and pulled it back and out of his reach.

"If you'd like me to wait until _Christmas _to give it to you—"

"No, no, that's okay!" Harry cried out, amending his statement, "Thank you, Father, for the wand."

Giving one of those tight smiles of his, Rabastan nodded and handed it over, before taking the trunk's handle in hand and dragging it toward the door. Harry looked down at the slender wand in his hand, a delicate stick that was for sure, but stern and pretty. It sparked just slightly when he clasped it in his small fingers.

"Open the door for me, will you, Harry?"

"Right!" Harry replied, trotting over to it and quickly unlocking it before swinging it open. The hot, dry August air hit him in the face and made him cringe a bit but at least he wouldn't be going out barefoot in the cold.

He held open the door for his father as he pulled the heavy trunk out onto the porch and then down the few steps and onto the grass outside. There was a lamp outside that lit magically when Rabastan had dragged the trunk close enough through the grass and dirt. Rabastan was thin, but nothing about his figure would give anyone the impression that he was one for physical activity. He enabled Harry's fascination with Quidditch but had said many times that he had never understood the appeal himself.

As such, he was breathing a little hard when he finally made his way to a stopping point. He had made his way halfway around the porch to the side nearest Harry who hung over the edge of the railing, watching the slim figure of his adoptive father set the trunk down and brush his hands over the front of his robes.

"There," He gestured to the ground, toward spot that was unmarked in any fashion save for the wave of his hand.

Bright green eyes found the spot with a confused frown, leaning over the railing and pointing with his newly presented wand, "There what, Father?"

"Do you remember the spell that I taught you earlier this week? The one for digging?"

Harry blinked, because of course he remembered. It had been the first actual spell that his father had told him. The pronunciation, accent and wand motion. It was a simple swish-flick-swish, a rather basic spell but Harry still adored the fact that, although not practically, he had been learning how to actually cast a spell.

"Yes, Father," Harry replied with ease, peering down at the man, "…Why?"

"I want you to cast it, that's why, Darling."

Glee and shock zipped up through Harry's spine, straightening his posture as he stared at the man, "_Really_? Is…that okay? They can't track it, right?"

"Yes, really. No, of course not, my brother was kind enough to put up strong to avoid anyone detecting my home and finding a…lowly, reclusive squib. Don't worry about that." Rabastan gave a small smile, his lips cracking slightly as he waved his spidery fingered hand toward the spot again, "You remember the motion, don't you? Do hurry, my Sweet, I haven't all night."

"I….Right!" Harry half yelped excitedly, fumbling his knew wand in position. It was cool in his hand and so brittle he thought he might snap it in two if he were two rough with it.

He recited the spell and relayed the motion, but nothing happened.

Harry deflated, "Did I do something wrong?"

"Say the words in tandem with your motion, Harry, not one before the other," Rabastan corrected him, with a hint of intensity that had not been there before.

So Harry tried again.

This time, the ground shifted up and out of the way for him, slowly at first, but as Harry's confidence in his magic grew stronger, so did the enchantment.

Warmth spread from his toes to his fingertips and lit in his brain and it could be seen in the sparkle in those awed green eyes. This was his. This magic, this beautiful energy that flowed through him, and Harry…couldn't remember being happier, not even when Rabastan had taken him in, or when that hoe had slapped Mr. Damon in the face—

"That's deep enough." The rough voice broke Harry's concentration and his spell just in time, and adding to his satisfaction was the look of pride in Rabastan's eyes, "Powerful, compassionate, precocious _and _beautiful. Not to mention a Parselmouth. I…do believe you are perfect, my Dear."

A blush burned into Harry's ears and he lowered his eyes modestly.

Without further hindrance, Rabastan gripped the handle of the trunk and turned it so that it would fit into the hole that he had made just so—

And something caught Harry's eye.

Something sticking out from the trunk, the cover having shut on it when it was closed. The boy straightened his glasses and squinted to get a better look, but only grew more confused.

It was a tuft of something brown trapped just outside of the lid, pinned there by the heavy top and many robust locks.

"What is that?" Harry asked, pressing his glasses until they dug into the bridge of his nose harder, until they dug into the flesh. "F—Father, wait, is that…is that _hair_?"

Rabastan looked down and stiffened at the sight, pausing for a long moment as he regarded his adoptive son through several dark curls that fell into his face. Usually it was such disarray that Harry found somewhat endearing about his own father, considering how healthy the man looked in comparison to how he had appeared when he'd first shown up at his doorstep. But now, in the lighting overhead, seeing what he saw, it shadowed his Father's eyes in an almost ominous fashion.

"Harry…" Rabastan started, looking down at the box, sighing deeply as he rubbed his temples, "This...had to be done..."

The sinking sensation in his stomach was so horrid that he didn't even think about the fact that he had stammered so tactlessly. That didn't matter now. Though the boy's mind was too innocent to truly jump from one coincidence to a conclusion, somehow it was as though his body had realized it before he had. His heart seized and his gut went cold and heavy, as though he'd suddenly swallowed an entire glacier.

Rabastan's face went dark for a moment, mumbling something that Harry knew was not for him.

"Should I? Might as well…he loves you….he'll understand, it had to be done…"

"I—" Harry started, and grey eyes shot to him, breaking out of whatever reverie he had been in. "I do love you, Father, but…please, what is it that I am supposed to understand? Why is there hair in there?"

His grip tightened on his wand, and in doing so it reminded him that it was there.

And, in a flash, where he'd seen it before.

He dropped it like it had burned him and took a step back, horror etched on his face. It was Mary's wand. Mary hadn't awoken to the thuds. There was brown hair sticking out of the trunk. _Mary had brown hair _and that was Mary's wand—

Choking on his question, Harry stared at his father, "Is—Is Mary in there? Why is she…I…is she dead?"

"Yes," Rabastan said softly, though his tone was obviously for Harry's comfort than for any real sorrow. One of the man's boot-clad feet came to prop itself on the trunk, and in a fluid motion, he pushed—

And the trunk made a sickening thud when it hit the bottom of the hole.

The hole that _Harry _had dug.

With Mary's wand.

God, he wanted to vomit.

"No! Don't…I don't understand!" Harry all but shouted, his heart pounding in his ears as he clutched his hair and shook his head, "Why is she dead? Why—why aren't we calling, or—or flooing someone? She h—had a husband, Father, she—"

He was ashamed of his stuttering, but he couldn't stop himself, eyes tearing up until they sparkled like diamonds, his voice growing thick with despair.

"Oh, my beautiful, kind little Harry," Rabastan interrupted him, shaking his head and sighing as he came around the porch and moved to join Harry on top of it, wrapping his arms around him from behind. "Getting so upset over a nasty little Mudblood…such a sweet, sweet boy…"

For the first time, Harry felt anger grasp his stomach directed at Rabastan.

"She—she wasn't—"

"Shhh, calm yourself, Darling. It's all over now," His breath was hot as he ducked to whisper in the ten-year-old's ear, "No one will ever be getting in between us again."

"She's _dead,_" Harry sobbed out, the tears gushing when they finally fell. He didn't want to be hugged by the man, not now. He'd…he'd called her trash, called her nasty, like it didn't even _matter. _But Harry new that now those children that she'd wanted would never be born and she would have made _such _a good mother. "Why…why are we just burying her like this? We've got to tell her husband, don't we? He'll…he'll worry."

"The only reason she could take this job was because he's overseas in an intensive training program," Rabastan told him, his hand rubbing over his stomach through his shirt in a way that the child supposed was meant to be soothing, but that only made him want to be sick even more. "We can't have anyone coming here to collect the body. I won't put us in jeopardy like that, I'm sorry."

Furiously, Harry protested, "But-!"

"_Shush,_" Rabastan said, tightening his hold on him, "You belong with _me_. I will _not_ risk anyone taking you from me. You must understand that. You _must. _You're my good little boy, you don't want to leave me, do you?"

Harry clenched his eyes shut and his shoulders heaved with another sob, "N—No, of course not, Father, b—but…I just…"

"Oh, I know…I know, my Love," muttered the squib, his mouth coming to rest just below Harry's ear in a fashion that the boy couldn't help but find…invasive. But he didn't move away. Of course he didn't. Despite the horrible way he had treated and was treating Mary, this was his _Father. _He'd taken him out of the cold and done nothing but love him and care for him. "You're so distraught over the dead Mudblood, aren't you, such a heart you have…"

Harry cried quietly for several more moments as Rabastan reverted to hushed tones again, as though he thought that he couldn't be heard.

"…even beautiful in tears…Merlin, should I? So young, but…I've waited, I've waited for him, he said he loved me himself…"

Again the arms tightened, and this time the possessive nature of the grasp was not lost on the boy, due to the fact that rough, chapped lips pressed hotly to his neck a moment later.

"…Father?" Harry whispered, not sure that such kisses were appropriate even when he was sad. They kept coming though, until he couldn't help but squirm and want desperately to move away, though he couldn't force himself to do so.

"Yes, Harry. I know, it's late, you're tired and…_saddened _for some reason, but I only do what is best for you. For both of us." For some reason that the bespectacled boy could not comprehend, the kisses only had his stomach growing colder and tighter within him. "I have a way to show you just how much you mean to me. How much I love you. I've wanted to teach you for so long, but I held back, and…it would make me happy. So very happy."

Harry's throat was too constricted from the lips still constantly pressing over the flesh there to respond.

"Come, we'll take care of filling the dirt in when we wake up in the morning." Harry found himself being tugged inside, his legs feeling as though they were hardly touching the ground, numb and not certain of anything anymore, let alone what his Father was mumbling. "You're my perfect, beautiful little miracle and I want us to be so much, so much closer…"

The stairs were hardly there at all beneath his bare feet and in a blink of an eye they were down the hall and standing at the entrance to a bedroom that Harry had never seen the inside of before.

His father's eyes were bright with emotion like he'd never seen in them before, but instead of pleasing him, he only grew more apprehensive.

"You'll sleep in my room from now on, Darling."

The door slam that followed echoed in Harry's ears long after it had left the barren walls and high ceilings.

* * *

><p><strong>Thank you for all of your wonderful reviews. They mean so much to me. I fixed that whole RegulusRodophlus typo. Honestly, fucking R names are killing me.**

**I'm happy that I didn't insult anyone with my uber-Christians, and although I know some of you are tired of them being depicted as radical, I would also like you to note Miss Charlotte. Also a religious Christian but a very good, sweet one. So…I showed two sides, right? Oh, and Talt can understand little bits of English, if that wasn't clear. Which is why he knew about certain things that Rabastan said to them…Rabastan speaks to himself, because he is a creepy bastard like that.**

**Anyway, I'm glad no one seemed bugged out about Rabastan being a squib. However, I have a feeling I have upset a lot of people with the events in the end of this chapter. His life will not be happy until he goes to Hogwarts, I told you all the warnings in the first chapter so please, please go reread them and don't yell at me. . I will, however, never EVER be graphic about sexual abuse. In fact, it will not even be spoken about for a long time. It will be more of something hovering in the background and alluded to from time to time.**

**That being said, after the next chapter there will be many significant time skips in order to hurry the development along so that we can get to some more Main characters, and then after that, Hogwarts. Woo! **

**Feedback is the wind beneath my Firebolt. And you don't want to be responsible for a nasty crash in the Whomping Willow, do you? I didn't think so.**

**-Toes**


	9. Evolution

**_Shifting of the Plate_**

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Warnings: <strong>_Racism/Bigotry, Implied Magical Violence, Implied Child Abuse and Mentions of other Disturbing happenings._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter Nine –<strong> Evolution

* * *

><p>"Harry, you don't want to leave me, do you?"<p>

It was almost exactly a year later and that question was directed at him again. This time, thought, the circumstances surrounding it were much different than before.

The last twelve months of Harry's life had been quiet, a quiet that could not be mistaken for peacefulness or tranquility. The quiet instead was a still, eery silence, like that of the aftermath of a loud shattering sound. Something had broken in Harry's little world, something that could not be fully repaired, something that such a young boy could not even understand.

All he knew was that life in the Cabin was no longer something he was religiously grateful for. The young adopted Lestrange wanted for nothing, except for freedom.

His eleventh birthday had been just two weeks before, and as he had the year before, he had been lavished with gifts of the expensive variety, impressive and thoughtful as well, from an updated broom, more Quidditch paraphernalia, books with more complicated spells as well as clothes and little trinkets.

But unlike his last birthday, the joy that came from unwrapping each prize was hollow.

Harry had not jumped up and embraced his father and thanked him furiously for each thing repeatedly. No, the quiet had grown so pervasive over the last year that it had tainted the very soul of the boy that had to endure it. There was no more stammering, no more shouting or giggling. All the sounds of happiness that the boy would have usually made had faded and made way for soft, obedient 'Yes, Father's and 'Thank you, Father's.

Like now, he sat in his favorite corner of the library, rereading the book he had been assigned for the week on spells and their dark alternatives when his father approached him, watched him for several minutes, before asking that question.

God, that _question._

Harry swallowed inaudibly, doing his best to push back the memories that had rushed to the forefront of his mind, because he remembered that day _perfectly._ Merlin, he hadn't even known then, had he? Now, just a year later he knew too _much _what those words meant.

Besides, the timing was too perfect.

Harry had been counting down to this time of year, and when his birthday had come with no news from his father he thought perhaps that he had…miscalculated.

He was eleven, after all, which meant that this was the year that he should be going to Hogwarts. Of course, no owl could get to the Cabin, so he assumed that Rabastan would have to make other arrangements if he wanted him to attend.

But that question proved that Hogwarts was not going to happen at all.

That question meant that he would have to lie, again. Which was not as harrowing as it might have been a year before, because just as the quiet had become a part of him, so had untruths. Dishonesty was when he returned the sentiment '_I love you' _when Rabastan spoke it, when he didn't protest returning to his Father's room at each bedtime, when he didn't kick and scream and tell him how much he _hated _it when he—

"Of course not, Father," Harry lied, just as quiet as ever as he flipped the page of his book.

"I thought not, of course you wouldn't," Rabastan's thin lips stretched into a fond smile as he let his hand fall onto the back of Harry's neck. The hairs there stood on end and he did his best to resist visibly shuddering, "I only have your best interests at heart, you know, my Darling. I considered Durmstrang, but really, anywhere in this day and age will just be filled with Mudbloods."

The word made Harry frown deeply, but with his head ducked it was hidden from Rabastan's view. His hair had grown out over the last year without a haircut, though it refused to grow too much for some reason, much to his Father's disappointment. The inky black tresses were still perpetually disheveled, butno longer in a way that looked wild and unkempt.

This year, instead of simply repairing and updating his old lenses, Harry had been given new glasses entirely. Silver, rectangular frames that made him appear older, or rather, his age, as Rabastan had always said that the circles had made his baby face appear even more round.

Even so, he disliked his new glasses greatly. Instead of plastic, the metal was constantly cold against the bridge of his nose, as though a constant reminder of his Father was sitting literally right before his eyes.

Merlin, he hated it _all._

The glasses were the least of it. The fact that his father did no seem to intend to allow him leave the Cabin even for proper schooling destroyed any hope of even momentary escape. Over the last year, that had all he had to look forward to.

What did he have now?

More books and clothes, expensive knickknacks and extravagant gifts, more lies and quiet?

"I can teach you better than those _Muggle Lovers_, can't I?" It was a rhetorical question. Rabastan was full of them, usually answering them before Harry had a chance to respond. Nowadays though, Harry rarely attempted to. "Of course I can. I _considered_ Durmstrang, I did, but…to be perfectly honest, I couldn't bear to part from you."

There was the truth of the matter. Rabastan was a selfish man, of that young Harry was now aware. Keeping the child to himself was of utmost importance.

"You understand though, Harry. You don't want to be away from your father either, do you?"

Harry was quiet for a long moment, trying to set his eyes upon the words on the page, until it became obvious that this time the man expected an answer.

"No, Father."

His stomach clenched in nausea and Harry wasn't sure if it was the lie or Rabastan's fingers brushing behind his ear.

* * *

><p>"Is this correct, Father?"<p>

"Your wand movement needs to be less tentative. Don't be so unsure about it."

"…Yes, of course."

"You sound even more uncertain than your wand motion looked. What is it?"

"Nothing at all, Father."

"Don't lie to pacify me, Harry, you know I'll always listen to your troubles."

"…Right, of course. Really, though—"

"Save it. Tell me why this spell concerns you."

"It's….just that I'm not comfortable with this spell. I don't think I'm ready for it."

"I think you _are. _You're nearly twelve, Harry, and far more advanced than most due to my training. Do you fear you'll fail?"

"It's not that. It's just, Frankie has only ever been nice to me—"

"Oh, dear, I _see, _I see. It's that compassionate bone in you again. Such a bothersome thing, sometimes. I'm just trying to teach you, Darling."

"I know. I'm sorry, Father."

"Yes, yes, I know you don't mean to disappoint me. Alright, we won't practice the Cruciatus on him. I'll have to find something else for you to preform it on though. In due time, I suppose. Let's continue with the _Imperius_ and attempt to hold it for ten minutes today."

"…Yes, alright, Father. Thank you."

"Very good."

"…"

"Is there something _else_ you wish to discuss?"

"No, Father. You've been very gracious."

"Then?"

"…_Imperio!"_

* * *

><p>"<em>You never talk to us anymore.<em>"

Harry looked up from his book, blinking out of his reverie and realizing only when the fog was gone from his eyes that Talt and Fere had spoken in unison, which was quite an odd occurrence for the twins. Harry peered down at them from his perch in the window sill, the gothic patterns on it casting beautiful lines of shadows upon the floor with the setting sun.

"_I do_," Harry replied in return, arguing the point nonchalantly, "_I have simply been busy with my studies."_

"_Pish posh," _Talt replied in annoyance as they slithered their way up the banister of the stairs in order to get closer to him, but even at it's highest point they were three feet below Harry and couldn't manage to stretch enough to reach the nook he had cradled himself in. "_Busy you have been, but even so you've been ignoring us and I do not like it."_

"_Nor do I,"_ Fere agreed, "_I adjusted to no longer being able to sleep with you, but who are we supposed to speak to if not you?"_

"_Each other?" _Harry suggested, raising his eyebrows at the two of them.

"_We've tried that."_

"_Unacceptable."_

Harry snorted, feeling a smile tugging at his lips despite himself. It was the first in quite a while, an in realizing this he regretting not having spoken to them for some time. He had grown…withdrawn, he knew, but if they could so quickly pull a smile from him after all this time he could see that it had been a mistake to ostrosize them.

"_You both survived for twenty years before you found me,"_ Harry commented rather easily even as he reached down to allow their struggling necks to wind around his wrist so that they could join him in window.

"_But we've grown used to you. You are the only Parselmouth in existence, you know."_

"_Father thinks differently,"_ Harry commented, his lips tugging downward once more and the tone in his voice growing somewhat monotonous. "_He says the Dark Lord is going to return some day._"

"_Do you believe what he says? Master says many things that are less than probable."_

"_Don't say that. You can barely understand half of what he says."_

"_Better than the none that you can understand, you blithering female."_

"_You're the female."_

"_If I was, I'd be a better female than you would."_

"_I'll toss you both down if you don't stop fighting,"_ Harry snapped at them, though the light in his voice had returned, and the two headed snake tightened around him in response. "_You're impossible."_

"_I agree."_

"_He was talking to _you_."_

"_No, I believe his gaze was cast in your direction as he spoke."_

"_You are mistaken, dear sibling—"_

Their bickering continued in the background, comforting Harry and allowing him to drift away as he brought his eyes back to the page he had been reading. He'd lost his place. But it didn't matter, his thoughts were elsewhere. On the Dark Lord Voldemort that the snakes had brought to his attention once again. His father spoke about him with an idolatry that was usually reserved for Harry alone.

Rabastan had his…fixations.

Selfishly, and in spite of the evil he knew the wizard was capable of, part of Harry wished that Voldemort would return, if only so that Rabastan's attention would focus on something else.

Gods, _anything_ else.

* * *

><p>Two months before Harry's twelfth birthday, that secret wish had been granted.<p>

"_Merlin_."

Breakfast in the morning at the cabin was usually a dull affair. Harry bathed as thoroughly as possible, dressed respectably as usual, and then joined his father at the table. Where he would read the mail that he had received from the owls, should there be anything. Frankie would serve them, and from there they would go to the library and tend to Harry's studies.

This morning, however, at the very cusp of June, his father muttered that name in astonishment as he looked at the parchment he held in his hand.

Harry looked up at him, curious to see his father react in such a way. He was about to ask what it was, but Rabastan seemed more than ready to share without the boy's prompting.

"Harry, it's—" His eyes were wide and the dark ringlets mussed when scrawny fingers raked through his hair, attempting to cope with information that Harry was not yet privy to. "I saw the papers but I thought…Dumbledore and his _paranoia _or something but—I just…I can barely _believe it._"

"What is it, Father?" Harry inquired quietly, straightening the now thin, sharp frames that rested elegantly on his nose. "You're stammering."

There was no bite in the words, just a dull statement of fact, because a Pureblood was _always _respectful of their parents.

"Yes, yes, I know, it's…quite unbecoming, but you don't understand, my love," Rabastan stood, dropping the letter in his hands and clutching Harry's shoulders to pull him from his seat at the table. Harry allowed the manhandling, as he had learned to, raising his eyebrows when the action did not lead to what he thought it would. "Harry, the _Dark Lord._"

The thin hands tightened on his shoulders and even that had Harry growing nautious.

He straightened his robes pointedly, but did not step away. There was no use, he had learned, "The Dark Lord, _what_, Father?"

Those hands tightened again and those eyes flashed with joy that did not go well with Rabastan's face.

"_Has returned._"

The world seemed to drop through his stomach and onto the floor. Harry tried not to allow his mouth to drop to the floor, because the man, the _being, _that his father had spoken about with such reverence was…real. Alive. Tangible. He had come back from the dead somehow despite Peter Pettigrew's defeat. Harry wasn't sure whether to feel elation or dread. Voldemort was an icon, a great wizard and…as far as Harry could tell, a horrible person. If his father worshiped him, there couldn't be much that was good about him.

He shouldn't have thought such a vile thing about his father, but he _had, _and he did so often nowadays. As long as he didn't voice it, didn't allow anything but adoration to show, everything would be alright. Rabastan was his Father, after all, despite all his misgivings.

Despite the deep rooted contempt that was beginning to corrode the boy's heart.

"He has?" Harry whispered, emerald eyes wide as he peered up at the ecstatic form of the Squib. "How?"

"Severus wrote to me, to tell me that what the papers are saying is true," Rabastan said quickly, maniacally releasing Harry and shaking his head as he paced the length of the dining room. "He's currently relying on a stone to live. His body is weak and he only wishes his closest followers to be in close contact with him, but soon…soon, he'll be healthy enough…"

"A stone?" Harry repeated, shaking his head in bemusement. "What do you mean?"

"The _Philospher's Stone, _Harry, it is a life stone. The only one of its kind and the creation of Nicolas Flammel. As long as our Lord's soul is attached to it, he will have _form._" As though Rabastan had just realized it himself, his grey eyes grew wide and he looked to the high ceiling. "He will be _alive._"

Harry watched him, his own mind spinning at the implications.

What did this mean for the world? Voldemort was back, in a sense, even if he was going to stay low until his strength had returned to him. But that meant that he would be drumming up followers again, even if just through recruiters, and even though Harry knew enough now to know that Voldemort was not the glorious leader that Rabastan made him out to be…

Voldemort was not one to be trifled with, and being who Harry was now, how _could _he?

He couldn't. The answer was as simple as that.

He would do as his father instructed him, as he always did. It had become a part of him, because even though part of him loathed himself for allowing Rabastan to warp his mind….warped it was. Rabastan was his Father, as twisted as it was, and was the only one who had ever allowed him to call him by the title. He was his _family _and after so long trying to find one that he could call his own, he couldn't throw it away, no matter how perverted it was.

"You will meet him."

Harry's eyes raised his eyes at the words, the man who had been starring in his thoughts calmed himself down enough to calculate the next plan of action.

"What do you mean, Father?" Harry inquired, his brow furrowing, "How can you arrange something like that? You said that you weren't allowed to be a Death Eater."

"I wasn't," Rabastan said, frowning as though stating the fact alone irritated him. "However, they did allow me to attend a Death Eater soirée in celebration of a successful raid once, though it was mostly to sneer at my lowly position in life."

As he said it, a sneer curled onto his thin lips as though mimicking those people from the past.

But soon it faded into a smug expression, riddled with eagerness, "He is sure to have one in celebration of his return to power when that day arrives…We will attend, and I will present you as my son to him. He will be pleased, so very pleased to see that there is such a powerful Parselmouth to serve him. _My son_."

Rabastan came forward and reached out his hands, the motion making Harry tense.

Cool fingers curled around his face, long hands cupping his cheeks and pulling his face up toward him.

"My beautiful son…we have much work to do."

* * *

><p>Looking in the mirror was not a feat that Harry was accustomed to accomplishing successfully, but to make sure that he was presentable, there was no way to avoid it.<p>

Not unless he wanted Rabastan petting his hair, and straightening his collar, or doing _whatever _else had to be done to make him presentable-which certainly he did not.

Besides, at this point in his life, he knew exactly how to make himself look like a pureblooded Wizard raised in the way of Old. Because ever since he was nine, he _had _been raised as such.

It did not seem like nearly five years had passed since he had arrived on his adoptive father's doorstep, wide eyed and more than ready to trust a kind hand.

It hadn't turned out to be as kind as he had hoped, but it was still there. And Harry would not bite the hand that fed him. That was what he reminded himself whenever he thought of speaking out of turn, or worse, _refusing _anything his father may ask for. He recited it whenever bile began to rise in his throat at the very sight of the born Lestrange.

Even though he was faced to tidy his dress robes in front of the full length mirror, he did his very best to never meet his own eyes.

His collar was straight, as was the thin silvery tie that fit snugly against the crux of his throat and made a slender line down his chest until it disappeared beneath the charcoal vest he wore that held his slight torso neatly and kept the black dress shirt beneath neat and without wringle. His robes were a beautiful, expensive fabric that shifted colors in the light between the jet black of his hair (which he had grown out by Rabastan's request a few inches longer than he would have preferred in order to cover his conspicuous scar) and shirt, the silver of his tie and the dark grey of his vest—

And eyes.

Damn, he'd caught them by accident. There was very little chance of avoiding it he supposed.

But at least, he thought, peering back at him from behind his delicate rectangular frames were not truly _his _eyes. Though his father had not wanted to alter his appearance too much, they had decided it was best to glamour his glasses to change the color of his eyes. Any glamour applied to his _actual _form would wear off in a matter of days or hours, but applied to an object it was permanent until the counter-charm was spoken.

Lestrange eyes.

Those eyes were not his, and he knew for a fact that if his nine year old self could see him now he would not recognize him. Nearly fourteen, Harry had grown into a young man. His voice had changed within the last year, to a tenor that he rather approved of. He'd thought, perhaps, the changes in his body would have steered Rabastan away, at least momentarily—

Just as he had been disappointed with the return of Voldemort distracting him, he was disillusioned again.

Now he stood before his own reflection, still a petite boy but not overly so, and there was nothing unhealthy in his complexion save for the barely noticeable darkness beneath his eyes that indicated many sleepless nights but could easily be mistaken for the shadows of his glasses.

He tore his eyes away from his own gaze and patted down his hair once more. It was much more manageable just a couple inches longer, heavier and therefore less likely to stand straight up in the air. Even so, it refused to be tamed, and the more one combed it, the more likely it was to act in rebellion.

"Are you ready, my darling?" Harry had seen the other approaching from the corner of his eye in the reflection of the mirror before him, but the arms wrapping around him from behind still had his spine stiffening and his posture straightening.

"Almost, Father."

"The portkey will activate in three minute's time. We not only shouldn't keep our Lord waiting, but should we miss the port key time, we will not be _allowed _to. We must be touching it when it activates or it will leave without us."

"Yes, of course, Father." Harry spoke softly, straightening his own tie once more, keeping his eyes on his own knees in the looking glass. Rabastan was dressed up as well, of course, because it had been sixteen years since he had been seen by this crowd and he wanted to be not only presentable but _admirable. _Which was difficult to achieve in such company, considering what he was. "I'm ready now."

"It is not easy to catch the Dark Lord's attention, I must say. I hope what we have discussed will not fall through on circumstance." He spoke fondly, as if Voldemort's attention was something to be envied. And, Harry supposed, for Rabastan it was.

But it didn't matter. If it was important to Rabastan, it was delegated to be important to Harry just on principle.

"I have, Father. As long as nothing unpredictable happens to pit him against me before I am able to show him what I can do, it should go as planned."

Harry stood, completely still against the squib's chest as the other reached into his pocket to receive a folded up piece of parchment that acted as invitation and, in less than a minute, a portkey.

"I should hope so. I'm sure the Dark Lord will be pleased. It is in good fortune that we come to him on a day that he is celebrating his return to physical strength…his mood should be good." Rabastan's voice had turned whispery and the pace of his words slightly more rapid than usual, which made Harry aware that he was no longer speaking to _him._

His heart speed up, almost in tandem with the mutterings of his Father. He was terrified, how could he not be? Rabastan was presenting him as his son, a powerful Parselmouth and the only possible saving grace to the man's reputation.

He was being offered as a useful servant, there was no other way to put it. Rabastan was bringing him there to show him off, to wave him around like a badge of worth as though to say "Look what I have to offer the Dark Lord that you do not".

It could work, but as far as Harry could tell from the facts, Voldemort was insane and inhumane in the most literal sense of the word.

The human condition was predictable. Insanity was not.

How could he know whether he would be taken as a gift or a threat, greeted with open arms or shot down an _Avada Kedavra_, his last sight a familiar flash of green—

"I should really start calling you by your new name." Rabastan murmured, moving from behind him to stand before him and holding out the parchment for Harry to touch. Raising his eyes, Harry nodded at the reminder. New name, Rabastan called it, but it was an _alias._ It would never be his name. "Come, take firm ahold of the parchment, _Rigel._ It is fifteen seconds until five."

His slender fingers stretched out obediently and closed on a corner of the letter tightly.

He was not _Rigel. _His eyes were not grey and his heart was not filled with bigotry. He was _just Harry, _somewhere buried deep inside where Rabastan could not see. Bruised and battered from being stomped into submission, but still _breathing_, Harry remained.

Without more warning than the distant ticking of the clock, Harry's stomach was wrenched along with his body as he was ripped through the universe at the stroke of a next hour.

Though the sensation was nauseating, he somehow preferred the indefinite spiral of time and space to where he would soon land.

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><p><strong>I'm merely a writer, telling a story that is clawing at me to be told. I'm just the vessel that my creation is using to get itself on paper. This story exploded in my head one day, with all of its abuses and plotlines, and to edit any of Harry's development, however horrid and sad, seems like it would be an injustice. The entire point of Harry's life before Hogwarts is for him to distrust <strong>_**everyone. **_**Not to mention the fact that I don't want to depict only muggles as being abusive people in Harry's life. It's just…the way he was, even with Mary's death, he was too trusting. It had to be broken down. Now…it is.**

**If you don't understand where I'm going with this, I urge you to stick around and see if my writing can carry you along. I trust my writing ability enough to believe that I can pull a storyline with such dark beginnings off. Character development is my thing, and it really just can't be bargained with.**

**If you have already left me, I wish you well, but…I don't think I'll apologize for telling a story the way that it was meant to be told.**

**Thank you all. Constructive reviewers, long, short, questioning, contemplative and fangirl-y. **

**Let me reiterate, this is pretty much the last chapter that Rabastan's abuse will even be mentioned until Harry admits it to himself and/or others, much, much later on down the line. Also, should you want a visual of the small alterations I've made in Harry's appearance, I've drawn one and it is my profile's avatar (though obviously with grey eyes, via Glamour). I strongly disapprove of making him not look like Harry anymore, so I did my best to make believable but also miniscule changes. So…In the next chapter, you will be getting a HELL of a lot of major characters. **

**Also, Harry will be going to Hogwarts, but please refer to the summary if you thought he'd be going there at eleven. 'Thirteen years later', plus the year that Harry had been alive when Voldemort came to kill his parents...It should actually be the chapter after next, to be honest. For now, the next chapter will have plenty of characters I'm sure you all have been waiting to see. Also please note that this is Tom/Harry, NOT Voldemort Harry. There will be a difference, a huge one, in this story.**

**No Feedback is what my Bogart turns into, peoples, so not leaving a review would be….Riddikulus! **

**-Toes**


	10. Presentation

_**Shifting of the Plate**_

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><p><strong>Chapter Warning(s): <strong>_Implied child abuse, Biggotry/Racism, Name Calling and brief Mentions of Torture._

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><p><strong>Chapter Ten –<strong>Presentation

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><p>There were grey and white speckled marble floors and Greek columns that climbed all the way up to the high ceiling and seemed to set off the wide, elegant staircase that lead the way up to a second level of the room. Those on that level could peer down at the ground floor, though Harry wasn't sure why they would want to when there was a much more enchanting sight above them. The entire ceiling appeared to be crystal, almost a giant chandelier itself casting blue and white light in skewed diamond patterns around the room like the sky through a kaleidoscope. There were instruments set up in the corner, a full orchestra's worth of instruments playing themselves to what Harry thought was <em>Mozart <em>but might just as easily have been _Vivaldi._ He'd never been as good as Rabastan at pinpointing those classic melodies, but whatever it was, it was exuberant and lovely, the sound resounding off of the walls.

The room they arrived in was by far the most beautiful place Harry had ever laid eyes on.

They appeared in a corner of the room beneath an archway that Harry supposed was meant for arriving guests, because the invitation portkey had burst into flames and withered out in Rabastan's fingers once the boy had released it.

"Come," Rabastan stated, putting a hand on the small of his back and leading him out of the archway so that they would not be bombarded by yet another arriving guest.

Harry's legs were still weak from the trip. He had quickly decided that portkeys were not his preferred mode of transportation, because he'd nearly toppled over and made a fool of himself—and definitely _would _have if Rabastan had not gripped his arm.

Walking out into the room, Harry took a closer look at his surroundings and found almost abruptly that the beauty that the home presented was an empty one. The instruments were lively from the magic that played them, but without true players there was no personality to the music. The dancing that occurred on the lower level was well choreographed waltzing –the very same kind Rabastan had taught him in preparation of this, though Harry hoped to Merlin that he wouldn't have to use—but there was nothing…_warm_ about this place, he noted.

The hollowness of the room, however, did not take away from its charm, in Harry's opinion. There was honesty in the coldness that he found refreshing and though his spine did not falter for a moment from his Pureblood posture, he felt…relaxed, here. Almost.

There were not going to be any surprise horrors here. No, this was Lord Voldemort's party, and therefore those that were attending were most certainly the nastiest sort in the entire wizarding world.

Which meant that horrors were inevitable. That predictability was nearly comforting.

No one here was going to _pretend_ to be a good person and then surprise him with cruelty. Their cruelty was practically written in stone.

"Father," He said lowly, casting his eyes once more from one end of the room to the other. His scar had begun to ache lightly, a feeling that he could only attribute to a localized headache. There was no other explanation he could think of, though it was only in the last few weeks it had ever acted as anything other than a piece of marred flesh. He continued, "Where exactly are we? To whom does this ballroom belong?"

"This," Rabastan muttered, with both distain and envy in his voice, "Is Malfoy Manor. They have made some alterations, of course, to accommodate the number of people that are attending."

"Of course," Harry agreed, a set of words that he found himself reciting more often than not. They meant little to him, now that he said them so much. _Of course, Father. You're right, Father. I love you, Father._ They were platitudes at this point and he droned them as would a faithless priest to an equally faithless congregation.

Already, Harry could catch the sneers of people who had noticed Rabastan's arrival. They looked over him with a moment of curiosity and then dismissal, because they didn't care enough about the squib to even wonder.

That would change soon enough.

Not that Harry cared much about his father's reputation in the deep recesses of who he _really _was, but who he pretended to be—who he _had _to be—cared. Because this him, the one standing in this room, was Rabastan's son in body and mind. His soul, though, that was _his, _and though it was locked away somewhere secret and dark, it was still there and waiting. Waiting for _what_, Harry did not know.

Snapping away from his thoughts when Rabastan's hand fell away, he began to scan the room with purpose this time, and saw faces that he had studied in preparation for this moment.

Several members off the Goyle family, their most prominent features being their heavy guts and bulbous noses that seemed to take up more of their face than any nose ought to. The daughter of the Parkinson family, loveliest when she smiled, though she did not do so often, the biology of the family tree had seemed to grant each member of the family with an overly upturned nose, as if saving them the trouble of lifting their chins. Pansy, he remembered, pitter pattered across the dance floor with one handsome boy or another, perhaps not the loveliest of her group of friends, but certainly the most top heavy and likely to allow her partner to cop a feel.

Astoria and Daphne Greengrass, two of the girls that followed the charismatic Parkinson around, stood like slender, elegant statues in the corner. They were beautiful, but untouchable, like porcelain dolls. Contradicting her superior posture, the younger of the two had a gaze that was flickering around from one boy to the next, hopeful for someone to ask her to dance.

The wife and son of the Crabbefamily passed by, the Father no doubt rallying with the rest of the _Inner Circle,_ and though the woman was nearly pretty despite her deep set eyes and hard brow, the scowl on her face diminished whatever beauty was left to look for. Her son was taller than her already by nearly a foot and a half, his own thick, straight nose and over pronounced forehead –not to mention Eguana-esque mouth— gave Harry the distinct impression of Frankenstein's Monster.

Each member of the Avery family that was not a member of Voldemort's finest was huddled with the others, each one tall, with lanky limbs and pronounced, pointed chins. Alecto and Amycus Carrow, each as short and oddly proportioned as the next; Antonin Dolohov, with a face like a white horse without the majesty; Yaxley and his wife, who must have been related in some way, because Harry had never seen two people with faces containing such an equal amount of hate—

And there, white blond in the crowd finally caught Harry's eye. He had been looking for the host of the party, though his son, Draco Malfoy, would have to do for now. The most prestigious members of Voldemort's were hidden from him, most likely on the top level of the ballroom that was hidden from sight due to its height.

No doubt, that sacred place needed an invitation, lest he be sneered at and tossed back to his _station, _but Harry intended to gain one after a significant amount of schmoozing.

Without another moment of hesitation, Harry stepped forward, chin high and gate as elegant as the Malfoy he was headed toward. He was surrounded by a group of what must have been lackeys, all Hogwarts-Aged wizards and witches hanging over his every word as he told a story that, from what Harry could tell by the smirk on his lips even as he spoke, painted him in a very flattering light.

He left Rabastan behind to stew in his corner and hope that his brother would greet him, though after over a decade, Harry highly doubted he would. Severus Snape, who he had yet to spot, seemed to be the only person that kept in moderate communication with his Father. From what the pretend Lestrange could gather, it was pity communication, and he was loathe to think that Snape would be so kind as to take himself from the company of the Dark Lord just to greet a squib.

Harry grew closer to the blond, enough to see that it was indeed the only child of Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, just in time for the group of acquaintances to burst into laughter at whatever punch line Draco had delivered. Just as the Malfoy opened his mouth to continue, his eyes raised to meet that of the stranger approaching them.

A nearly invisible, pale eyebrow lifted in question as Harry stopped a few feet short of stepping on the young man's toes.

"Draco Malfoy, I presume," Harry greeted smoothly, his mask as faultless as his mannerisms, both in gestures and speech. He made no extraneous movements and met the blue grey eyes that Malfoys were known for straight on, his voice somehow embodying both recognition of Draco's superior rank and a confidence that implied Harry knew he belonged there with him. "I meant to find your parents, but no doubt they are enjoying the luxurious favoritism of our Lord, and rightly so. In any case, I do wish to extend my gratitude to the host of the party and hope you will relay it to them in turn."

He paused, drinking in the surprised but controlled expression on the young Pureblood's face, then continued.

"Your home is magnificent; though I'm sure you're well aware." Harry did not let his eyes stray from Draco though Pansy Parkinson had come to join them after dancing with who, even from the corner of his eye, the green-eyed boy could tell was Theodore Nott. "I consider it a privilege to have been allowed attendance and, even more so, to make your acquaintance."

There was a subtle bemusement in those eyes, but in front of his friends, Malfoy did not allow it to show in his voice when he replied:

"Your formality is appreciated." He looked him over briefly, as though trying to conjure up where he knew the boy from, though of course, no memory would be recalled. "You did, however, forget to introduce yourself. My friends and I are very curious about who you are. You are of the age to attend Hogwarts no doubt, and yet none of us know you. Even if you attend Durmstrang, unless you are new to Voldemort's ranks, we should have seen you before."

"Draco, why are you interrogating the poor fellow?" Pansy interrupted, seeming somewhat endeared to him already. She was a short girl, even shorter than Harry, and the light in her eyes when she looked at him told him that she was fascinated by his politeness and that, should he be so inclined, he could take her for a spin on the dance floor.

"Honestly, Draco," Nott agreed, as any boy was likely to agree with a girl that had just had her chest pressed against theirs. "He's being quite polite. Let him breathe."

"No, Miss Parkinson, Mr. Nott, he is quite right. It was rude of me to not introduce myself right away," Harry continued, giving a small smile that he hoped was just as cunning as it was sheepish. He wanted Draco to be aware that, while not truly abashed, he was willing to look it, for the sake of keeping appearances, "It would be baffling to anyone—"

"I'm not baffled, merely curious," Draco corrected, already sounding bored with the conversation by the way he elongated his words and lowered the tone to them. The drawling was merely a cover for his embarrassment, though, and so Harry continued as though he had never been interrupted at all. After all, Draco was now trying to frustrate him in response to the frustration Harry had cast upon him.

"—to see a boy your age not attending Hogwarts. Though, the reasoning is simple enough, I assure you. My father was not interested in me attending a school full of _Mudbloods_ and _Muggle Lovers_, so he homeschooled me himself."

The look of collective understanding on most of the adolescents' faces, in any other setting, would have been accompanied by nodding and chorus of '_Ooooh'_. This was, however, a collection of Purebloods, and such nonsense was not tolerated.

"Our mother almost did the same," Astoria piped up, the delicate girl seeming happy to have something to contribute to the conversation.

"If my Father weren't so busy," added Pansy, just as pleased to be relatable. "He would have as well. Honestly, what _are _we learning at Hogwarts? The only useful subject is _Potions_ and that's only because Professor Snape is brilliant."

"My father teaches me the Dark Arts at home anyway," Nott threw in amiably.

"Well, of course, my father does _too_—" Pansy began to amend, rolling her eyes as though that had been implied.

"Yet," Draco interrupted, as Harry saw he was prone to doing without consequence, "We still do not know your name, _nor _who your father _is._"

"Apologies," Harry said, once more with a cheerfulness that hinted that he was not apologetic at all. "My name is Rigel Lestrange."

At once faces contorted, just for a breath, in shock as though wondering if Bellatrix had given birth to a son that Rodophus had hidden away—

"My father is Rabastan Lestrange."

Just as quickly, the faces moved in the other direction, from shock to disgust. Pansy seemed immediately sickened and sorrowful, as though guilty that she had ever entertained the notion of dancing with a squib. Nott looked annoyed, and Astoria looked as though she had rather suddenly wet herself and was both embarrassed and repulsed. Similar looks were reflected in the other students, save for the expression on Draco Malfoy's face, which was one of smug realization and belittlement.

"I_ see,_" smirked the blond wizard before him, giving a glance back to his friends as thought to suggest that he had known all along. "_That _makes more sense, then."

Harry suspected that they likely assumed that, as the son of a squib who had not attended Hogwarts, he was a Squib also.

And Harry was comfortable with them believing that, for now.

A boy whose name Harry did not know (meaning that he was either half-blood or muggleborn, and given the present company, he highly doubted the latter) sniggered from the back of the crowd, "I _thought _I smelled something nasty coming from him. The stench of Muggle, it seems."

Pansy just shifted, looking uncomfortable in his presence and lifted her chin, before saying, "Too right you are. I don't want to be here anymore. Dance with me, will you, Larz?"

And he did, grasping her shapely waist and sweeping her onto the dance floor. Despite the rather dramatic height difference between them, the waltz was as lovely as ever. Harry watched them out of the corner of his eye for a brief moment, before straightening his glasses and regarding Draco Malfoy once more.

Flatly, Harry stated, "Your aversion to my heritage is quite understandable, but also rather…_conspicuous,_ isn't it?"

Malfoy's eyes narrowed at him, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing, really," Harry replied, with a feigned nonchalance in his voice, "Just that I expected more _subtle_ jibes from such prestigious Pureblood magic folk, rather than such plebian expressions of distaste."

"_Plebian?"_ Daphne Greengrass snarled for the first time. Harry noticed that she was a few steps farther back that he remembered her, as though she thought that being near him might very well render her just as magicless as she believed him to be. "You're the plebian one. One without magic born from a father without magic? You might as well _be _a Muggle!"

Astoria frowned, looking him over and shaking her head, "A Muggle in wizards clothing."

"At the Dark Lord's celebration no less," Draco grimaced as though the words themselves were each a different and unappealing Bertie Bott's Every Flavored Bean. "It's positively deceitful."

"Honestly," Nott growled, joining in yet again with a voice that had lowered an octave.

He was attempting to be sinister, Harry thought blandly, taking in each of the faces of the servants to the Dark Lord, each one dark and attractive in their own way. Harry supposed that he looked quite similar to them, with a star for a name –_Rigel—_ and expensive robes, with his chin lifted and spoiled rotten like he had been for the last few years—

And yet he was not like them, not really.

The last four years he had lived with an education that any Pureblood would have, but his experience before, and even during, had dulled him to the things that these children thought important. Children, he called them, though most were months, if not years, older than him.

Chronological order meant very little when it came to maturity, to the age of one's soul.

So, from Harry's ethical and emotional perch, he could not help but laugh inwardly at the adolescents he saw before him. Malfoy and his proud sneer, happy to have been given the upper hand in front of his peers, so that he had that power to dangle above Harry's head like a carrot.

It was unfortunate for the blond that Harry was not a rabbit. Not an innocent, nubile victim. He had not been for a longer than he cared to think about.

"Nothing to say, Lestrange? Not going to defend yourself?" Draco inquired, moving a slender, elegant hand to seemingly put his hand in his pocket. However, after a moment, Harry saw that it was not an expression of leisure so much as a tactic to reveal his wand. Sturdy, black and polished, it was a fine specimen of a wand and well suited for its pristine and sleek owner. It was as though he was saying; _'Not going to defend yourself? As if you could.'_

A few of his friends followed suit, showing off as if to back Draco up and frighten him with their magic _sticks _that they thought would be foreign and unsettling for Harry.

"Not particularly," Harry said, his voice soft in a show of submission but the young Malfoy before him was able to sense by the hardness in his eyes that he was not the least bit afraid of him, or his little friends.

It angered the Slytherin, and just as Harry begun to turn around to leave them, he found himself face to face with the broad chest of a boy he knew was Gregory Goyle. He'd seen him with his mother not half an hour before and yet there he was, blinking dumbly at the scene he had walked into. Harry cleared his throat and politely spoke a simple "Excuse me", but Draco must have gestured in some way not to let him escape, because Harry found himself put back into place by a large hand gripping the nape of his robes.

Draco was, Harry had realized, a bit of a bully. It wasn't for some affinity for sadism so much as a preference for power, because Harry knew well that to be a Pureblood meant to be of a sort of…_elite._

And as anyone part of a special club, he wanted to flaunt his badge. Not only flaunt it, but make those that did not possess one feel as less than, in order to impress his friends with the height of his pedestal.

Harry could not say that he liked Draco Malfoy, but he certainly was serving his purposes.

"Gregory, meet Rigel Lestrange," Draco introduced with a formality that was mocking in and of itself, even without the amused smirk on his face. "Son of Rabastan Lestrange."

"Oh," Gregory grunted, not even looking at Harry as he secured him there. "Who?"

Draco sighed, "Rodulphus' squib brother."

"Uh…oh. Is 'e a squib, too, then?"

"We'll say the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," Draco drawled, proud of his own cleverness as his eyes raked down Harry's form as though reassessing his opponent.

"…What do apples have to do with it?" Goyle asked, finally letting his eyes flicker down to Harry, as though confused. He seemed to be looking in Harry's face for the answer to his question, unsure whether or not he should be disgusted by having touched him. "'E a squib or not?"

"Yes," Draco replied, an edge to his voice that expressed distaste for having his subtlety ruined. "He's a _squib._"

"Oh," the large boy said again, speaking as thought his tongue was slightly too big for his mouth, "Gross."

"The sentiment is mutual," Harry intoned with an air of laziness that was common for Purebloods. Most of the old families were very wealthy, and as such were unimpressed with most of the things money could buy and pretended to be immune to the aspects of life that it couldn't.

It didn't seem that Goyle quite knew that he'd been insulted, because his frown deepened not in anger but puzzlement.

Draco was not so obtuse, however, and his eyes flashed angrily. "How dare you insult a pureblood _wizard?_ Who…_what _do you think you are?"

His wand was out in a moment and pointed right between Harry's eyes, so close that should Harry have rocked forward even slightly the tip of the firm black wand would have nudged the bridge of his glasses.

"I don't know why they don't drown vermin like him the moment they realize it's a squib," Nott whispered fiercely and there was a murmur of agreement.

"Someone like him," Daphne Greengrass spoke up, her voice much colder than her sister's. While Astoria seemed to embody the essence of a delicate flower, Daphne instead seemed to be just as fragile but as hard and cold as a statue made of ice. "Should have been executed at birth. Knowing what his father is, he was bound to be one as well."

"True," added Theodore, his nose wrinkling in Harry's direction.

The depth of human cruelty, even of the petty adolescent kind, was nothing new to Harry. He remained unfazed at the wand's tip, and no doubt his lack of reaction only spurred the blond to try harder to frighten him.

"Do you know what we do to scum like you?" Draco sneered, and despite the quick, ferocious delivery of the words there was no spittle to be had. He was faultlessly proper even when attempting to be intimidating.

"My father says they liked to _Crucio _your father when he showed up at these events," Pansy sniffed, rejoining the group from the dance floor, crossing her soft arms over her chest and somehow managing to glare in his direction without meeting his eyes. The boy she had called Larz had also joined the group once again, but looked more interested in the discussion than the begrudging Pansy.

Nott gave a harsh, humorless laugh, "I'm sure we could arrange something for you in your father's place."

"Sounds like loads of fun," Harry commented, allowing his voice to waver slightly. He had never been on the receiving end of the Cruciatus Curse, so the thought was truly threatening, but he also did not _intend _to be. Of course, his plan could go wrong, and he could end up being tortured until he was a drooling mess of supposed squib meat on the floor for Voldemort and his followers to jeer at as they stepped over him, as though he was nothing more than a nasty, old piece of chewing gum that had gotten stuck "However, I should probably get back—"

Goyle's hard form assured that Harry was not going anywhere unless Draco deemed it so.

Rabastan had not mentioned that they had tortured him at these parties, but it certainly explained his addled mentality. Sessions of the Cruciatus paired with over a decade without the company of another human being had made him lonely, and therefore susceptible to cling obsessively to the only person who he felt was there for him.

A miracle, a gift…something wonderful that he deserved after a life of hardship.

Then again, Harry pondered morosely, perhaps he was giving his adoptive father too much credit. Harry, too, had suffered a life of hardship.

"Oh, it _will _be fun," Draco said, stepping forward and lowering his wand to brush Harry's chin and then continue further until it was aimed at his throat. "For us, anyway. Even a masochist couldn't enjoy the Cruciatus curse for long."

Harry narrowed his eyes at him, "Are you implying that you'll do it yourself? Even if your parents can cast Unforgivables, _you _are underage. You're as much of a Squib as I am, during the summer."

"How _dare _you!" Draco's voice raised both in volume and pitch and a few of the older boys drew their wands as if to dare him to say the same about _them. _It was true, seventeen-year-olds in the group were not subject to that rule.

"Comparing a wizard to _you! _You are but an _insect_ in comparison." A boy Harry knew as Flint spat, his skeletal face giving him the appearance of a Holocaust survivor –a sign that he had become drenched in Dark Arts much too fast.

Harry felt pity for him, though he did not want to.

He knew well the strain the Dark Arts could weigh on a person. His father had taught him many spells, but he practiced them only for half an hour a day at the very most. Too much too fast could cause detrimental damage to both a person's magic and psyche.

Marcus Flint was a textbook example of the destruction Dark Magic could do to a virgin magical core.

Though he was fresh out of Hogwarts, a time where he should have been at his prime, his hollow cheeks and sunken eyes gave him the appearance of a young man several years older. His paleness was very unlike the glow of Draco Malfoy that reminded Harry of moonlight, and instead was tinted slightly blue, an unhealthy pallor that should only be the characteristic of a corpse.

Harry's fingers twitched, wanting to draw Mary's wand –he could never truly think of it as his own—but that would ruin the act that he was trying to so hard to keep up.

A lowly but proud squib, simply _begging _to be put in his place.

"I meant no disrespect," Harry said softly, his words tip toeing around the ears of the group, though he knew it was quite plain that his statement could not be benign.

"Don't you mess with me," Flint stepped forward, narrowing his eyes into slits until the bloodshot whites were no longer visible. "Don't you mess with me, I could _literally_ turn you inside out, and everyone in here would laugh as your guts spill onto the floor—"

"Nothing so messy as _that,_" Draco interrupted suddenly, shooting a sharp glance at Flint as thought to tell him to let _him _handle this. There also seemed to be a tint of green that came over the boy's face at the mention of something so gruesome and vulgar.

"Sticking up for your cousin, Malfoy?" Flint snapped at him, baring his teeth.

"Hardly," Draco lifted his chin, looking over Harry once again as though just realizing that he was technically related to him. "It's just that we don't need Squib blood all over our ballroom floor."

"It's true," Pansy tossed in, letting her gaze fall on him directly for the first time since his name had been revealed., "You'd never get the smell out."

"What smell would you be speaking of, Miss Parkinson?"

The drawling voice was low and smooth, but it did not need to be loud to carry through the group of teenage wizards, silencing them more completely than they had been even when shocked at Harry's status as an assumed squib. This time it was not a quiet born of disgust, but respect for the owner of that voice.

Lucius Malfoy appeared from behind his son, cocking an eyebrow at the several drawn wands all pointed in a certain bespectacled boy's direction. It was quite similar in tone and inflection to Draco's voice, though decidedly deeper.

"The smell of squib intestines spilled all over our floor," Draco answered for her, straightening his back in his father's presence.

"A squib?" Lucius repeated, interest peaked, as one might be mildly interested in a spider crawling upon their kitchen counter, if only long enough to squash it.

Though the gaze that fell upon him was the same color as the younger counterpart before him, there was something much more worthy of fear than that of the juvenile threats of a fourteen-year-old boy.

Something that told Harry that, unlike Draco, Lucius _was _a bully for the sake of sadism. He knew he was of the elite, didn't have peers to reaffirm it, and the only one he wished to impress was the Dark Lord himself.

"Interesting," Lucius whispered, taking a step closer to him and looking upon him unabashedly. There was no revulsion in his features, only awareness that Harry could be an interesting toy to play with, if only to assert his dominance. "Put down your wands, boys, no need to be _ugly_."

"Sorry, Father," Draco said almost immediately, pocketing his wand. Flint and the other boys did so less quickly, but their wants were put away just the same. "He doesn't know his place."

"An astonishing amount of his kind do not," Lucius agreed quietly, with a glint to his eyes that proved he thought that his _kind _belonged nowhere but in the ground. He moved closer to Harry, who lowered his eyes in a submissive gesture that would hopefully suggest that he was a weak enough specimen to be amusing for the Dark Lord, but not so insulting as to anger him.

"I would like to extend my gratitude to the host," Harry suddenly spoke up, surprising most of the young wizards that would not have dared upset the situation in his place. He inclined his head slightly but did not bow completely at the wizard before him, "I was going to have your son pass along my astonishment at the beauty of your home, but because I have been graced by your presence, I am more than happy to deliver the sentiment in person."

There was quiet for a moment as Lucius regarded him with a single raised brow.

"Is that so?" Lucius dragged out the syllables of the sentence, "An interesting specimen you are, Mr. Lestrange. Then again, despite your father's misgivings, no one could call him impolite or imbecilic with an honest tongue."

Harry doubted that Lucius cared too much about keeping his tongue honest. Truthfulness was not a Slytherin trait, after all, unless it happened to suit said Slytherin at the time.

"I will return the compliment to him," Harry replied, inclining his head once more and taking a step again as if to retreat, "I'm sure he will be pleased to hear it from someone as revered by the Dark Lord as yourself…"

"Would you like to meet him?"

A shocked expression crossed Harry's face and he paused, secretly satisfied. "I… beg your pardon, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Would you," Lucius repeated lowly, as though speaking to a particularly dim-witted toddler, "Like to meet the _Dark Lord?_"

Harry took a moment with his answer yet again, schooling his features into that of sheepishness with a hint of eagerness. If living with Rabastan had taught him anything, it was how to lie, how to _act…_because each day he performed, played the part that he had been assigned. This was no different.

And, to his surprise, he was…having fun.

Part of him was unnerved at being launched into this situation, a room full of judgmental people that considered him dirt beneath their shoes, while another part of him was simply relieved to be among people other than his father. Interactions with Frankie had never been the same since he had begun practicing the two nonfatal Unforgivables on the elf, and it was not as though he could truly confide in the pair of bickering snakes that, while he enjoyed their presence, could barely stop snarling at each other for long enough for Harry to get a proper word in edgewise.

"I would love to, of course," Harry finally responded, his voice quiet, "Though I am sure the Dark Lord has more important things to do than to meet me."

"He certainly does," Lucius agreed, the side of his lip quirking, and for the first time since his arrival Harry allowed himself to peer down at the cane that he held. A silvery head of a cobra was the curve of the cane, though Harry would guess it was white gold rather than _silver—_as if a Malfoy would carry something of such low quality around with them—and he knew immediately that it was a case for his wand. It was not so much for cleverness, only a child would be fooled by the casing, but it was certainly stylish. "However, I'm sure he can make a brief exception for the _son _of _Rabastan Lestrange._"

The tone to his voice implied that he, and the others that resided on the second story, would enjoy torturing the son after the father had been such fun to mock.

How Rabastan maintained such loyalty to a man that had allowed such horrendous acts of violence, the thirteen-year-old could not be sure. Even as the thought crossed his mind, he cursed it. It was not his place to question the Dark Lord…though he may not be a squib, he was certainly no one of _importance. _It didn't matter which side he was on because he was just Harry Owen on the inside and it was not as if he could…make a difference, no matter the side he was on.

He was a Parselmouth, and a Pureblood, for all practical purposes. His allegiance had been decided for him.

So it was better for him if he just _stifled _thoughts like that.

"I am also sure that Bellatrix would most enjoy meeting the nephew that she does not know exists," Lucius drawled, and Harry took that to mean that she would be the one _most _pleased by a chance to throw nasty hexes at him.

"If you are offering me an assembly with the Dark Lord, sir, I graciously accept. It would be …_honored_," Harry delivered, as a cocktail of emotion bubbled in his stomach. Fear, uncertainty and even a bit of _pride_ because he enjoyed the thought of showing these bigoted fools that he _could _do magic. When they discovered that he was every bit the wizard that they were, they would not only eat their words, they would _choke _on them.

"_Excellent_," purred the man before him calmly, casting a glance around the group of Hogwarts students briefly before lending his cool gaze to Harry once more. "Follow me then, Mr. Lestrange."

He began to part the students by starting in their direction, allowing them to move out of his way as he turned toward the staircase purposefully.

Speaking up for the first time in several minutes, Draco took a step toward them. "Father, I want to come with you as well—"

"_No_."

Draco quieted, but with a reluctance that seemed to almost be painful.

"No, Draco, you are to stay down _here_," Lucius continued with an edge to his voice, flicking his gaze in his son's direction, not even daring the boy to argue with him but simply refuting the possibility for dispute. The boy's mouth snapped shut and a slight touch of pink colored his cheeks, but it disappeared when he turned to glare furiously at the raven-haired boy that had begun to follow his father across the room, as though somehow Harry had planned for him to be left behind.

And while Harry had expected the interaction to progress much the way it had, it had been up to Lucius entirely whether or not to allow his son to bear witness to …whatever it was Lucius thought Voldemort would do to him.

Rabastan had never confided in him that they had performed the Cruciatus Curse on him during the dark wizard's last reign more than a decade ago, so he was not sure what else could have been withheld from him. He had to expect the absolute worst from them, and that thought was still more comforting than it ought to have been.

The further Harry ascended, the more tremulous he appeared to become, and he did his best to deny the fact that he was indeed terrified.

He was soon going to be face to face with Lord Voldemort. His scar began to twinge again inexplicably.

Though he did not approve of bigotry or torture, Harry could not help the stroke of admiration that flittered up his spine to lick at his brain when the heads of those on the second level came into view. Rabastan had spoken reverently of the Dark Lord every day for the time Harry had been with him, and though he had formed his own opinions through simple historical fact he could not help but be awed when he stepped onto the surface of the top floor and saw through a dozen or so scattered Death Eaters the tall cloaked figure of the man he knew had to be _him._

He felt like the child of a devoutly religious parent laying eyes on the Sistine Chapel for the first time; agnostic though he may be, the sight was no less astonishing.

His forehead decided to act as though a needle had jabbed itself straight into the center of it, and he hid a wince, but after that it faded to a dull ghost of a pinprick.

Voldemort was far across the room, near the large windows that looked out into a garden Harry had caught glimpses of on the first floor, speaking to a man with dark hair framing a pale face with too-prominent cheekbones. Voldemort himself was even whiter still than the man he spoke to, with a smooth bald head and eyes so red Harry could spot them even from where he stood—

Before Harry's gaze could linger too long on the figure, the Dark Lord was obscured from view by Lucius's curtain of blond hair as he lead him through the members of the Inner Circe. Each person he passed gave him a look of curiosity, intrigue or annoyance, though Harry knew it to be one of contempt for anyone that dare intrude upon their favoritism. They had, most likely, not seen who he came in with, and therefore did not yet know that he was one truly deserving of their scorn.

The talking quieted from most directions as Lucius stopped several yards from the Dark Lord, waiting for a full minute with Harry making sure not to appear as awkward as he felt behind him.

He did his best to keep his own gaze to himself, but he could not help but spot his adoptive uncle's expression of knowing horror.

Had Rabastan told Rodolphus that Harry existed—or rather, that _Rigel _existed? No, no, that horror was new, he was in the process of realizing it when Harry's eyes briefly grazed his. It was probably the eyes that had done it, his fake grey eyes that were the same as Rabastan's, as Rodolphus's and their father before them. He was, this second, realizing that his brother had procreated and the expression on his face was not for pity at Harry's future torture session, but instead indignation that his exiled squib brother had reproduced.

He had, Harry remembered, given Rabastan the Cabin, cast every ward that protected it, and still to this day sent Rabastan sums of money to live generously on. But other than those cold favors, he was not in contact with his brother.

"Lucius," came a voice as smooth as water, and it took a moment for Harry to realize who it must have come from. "Why have you brought me a _child_?"

There was both amusement and chilling admonishment in that voice, and it felt suddenly like Harry had swallowed a large ball of led. A titter of amusement came from a female witch with charcoal eyes and wild black curls, beautiful in the way a demon was, fascinatingly wild but deadly just the same.

Bellatrix Lestrange.

The name came to him immediately. His aunt, by marriage, and also a distant cousin of sorts.

"_Yes, _Lucy," She giggled in a way that Harry thought gave giggling a bad name, "Whatever have you brought that boy to our Lord for? If anything, I thought I'd see you sneaking _Draco _up here."

"Not at all," Lucius said smoothly, but that was the only response he gave Bellatrix, instead speaking directly to his master_._ "This boy is Rabastan Lestrange's son, My Lord, I thought he could have…entertainment value."

A hiss of surprise and outrage escaped the mouths of several people at the news.

With that, Malfoy Senior stepped aside to allow Voldemort's cold eyes to view him.

At the same moment, Rodolphus spoke gruffly from somewhere behind him, "I expect you've got the same…_deformity _that my brother does, then, boy?"

But Harry did not answer him.

He instead took a close and more detailed inventory of the figure before him. It was indeed Severus Snape who he had been speaking to before Harry had been introduced, that was easy enough to tell by the hooked nose, strong jaw, sallow skin and greasy hair that usually accompanied the title of Potions Master. Voldemort was a terrifying, towering specimen of a man, with no hair, and those eyes that Harry had found so piercing even from the other side of the room were made even more menacing by the fact that they were like the very snakes Harry knew he could speak to.

And just as that thought crossed his mind, a second pair of slit eyes peered from the floor, yellow this time and less eerie, as they actually belonged on the species that they were intended. A huge snake with scales that were, at first sight, as black as Harry's hair, but when it moved in the glittering sunlight it appeared a deep, very Slytherin green.

"Rigel Lestrange. Your snake is beautiful, My Lord." Harry commented in his most polite tone as his eyes travelled back up to meet those startling crimson ones.

A curl of lip that could have been a sneer or smirk, or a cross between both, Voldemort snarled, "_Occlumency!_"

For a moment, Harry thought the man might have spoken in Parseltongue, and so he tried not to react to it at all. He had never heard it from a human's mouth before, other than his own, and it surprised him how easy it was to mistake for English, like he had all those years ago in the Lincoln's garden.

"_What?"_ This, Harry knew, was not Parseltongue, because this had been hissed ferociously by Lucius Malfoy.

Harry continued to meet Voldemort's eyes as the man peered at him coolly, taking his time to respond to the host's declaration.

"This boy is no squib. He is an Occlumens, which, as I'm sure you are aware, requires _magical _mind_._" Voldemort intoned calmly as he rolled his eyes down the length of Harry's much shorter build appraisingly, "Quite an accomplished Occlumens."

Severus Snape shifted slightly, apparently to turn his front more toward the newly discovered wizard, though no reason for this movement was apparent to Harry.

"You filthy, lying—" Lucius spun on him, perfectly manicured fingers clenching his cane as though he was thinking hard about drawing his wand, but he was cut off.

"I did not."

"Excuse me?" Lucius seemed to be insulted by the contradiction.

"I did not _lie_," Harry elucidated simply, still not looking anywhere but at Voldemort. His eyes were not challenging, but they did hold a hint of pride. "I simply did not deny it when he assumed that I was just as defective as my father."

He word _defective _seemed to garner a hum of approval from Rodolphus.

"How _dare _you?" Lucius spat, growing more mortified and furious by the moment. He had never sounded more petulant and more like his son than he did with those words.

"My apologies, Mr. Malfoy, but I do not happen to be responsible for contradicting your son when he makes incorrect assumptions," Harry said smoothly and he could see rage contorting in Lucius' face. There was a spark of violence in those eyes, but the dark haired boy was aware that Lucius would not act on them because of the impression that he had just made.

Besides, Harry considered, it was Draco who he was really upset with. Draco, who had presumed that Harry was a squib and caused this debacle….Harry, would have to thank the boy.

"You see, My Lord," Harry started to explain, finally lowering his eyes and clasping his hands in front of himself, "My father home schooled me, you see, so Draco and his friends thought that, as I had not attended Hogwarts and my father is…well, _what he is…_"

"Presumptuousness can be a flaw most fatal," Voldemort agreed slowly, his eyes flickering over to Lucius, who seemed thoroughly abashed. Harry did not envy Draco, who was most likely still having a laugh with his friends at Harry's expense. "Young Draco should have the inclination to jump to conclusions squashed out of him before he makes a mistake more grave than this one."

"He'll be handled, My Lord, I am…_most _regretful to have presented him as a squib," Lucius bowed his head deeply. "It was…_foolish _of me."

"Oh, _that's _nothing new, Lucy, darling."

Another cruel, feminine laugh sounded from Harry's right, and this time he let himself look at the woman head on. Bellatrix Lestrange stood there, looking positively gleeful at Lucius's mistake.

"_What is going on? Who is the boy, Master, is he anyone important or interesting? He doesn't look like much."_

Once more, the words came out of the blue, and Harry for a moment wasn't aware that Nagini had spoken them. Everyone knew the name of Voldemort's prized pet, cherished beauty that she was curled into a coil on the floor by the dark wizard's feet. She was a harsh looking thing, sleek and elegant but daunting just the same—a born predator.

It was a wonder that Voldemort had as much control of her as he did, and Harry could only attribute it to his ability to speak to her.

Harry did not react to the hissing that he could understand, but listened, well aware of where he wanted this reaction to head. Instead, he focused on Bellatrix, who was jeering amusedly and walking closer to center stage, where Harry and Voldemort stood. Snape was still there, watching with a quiet mouth and dark, calculating eyes, but he had faded behind and seemed to have become part of the room, merely an observer.

Lucius seemed to want to retort, but did not seem sure that it would be well received after his blunder.

"You're right lucky, you are," Bellatrix jeered from her place, putting long fingered hands on her hips so that her hand drew attention to her small waist that was already drawn tightly into a corset, "Lucius, that the Dark Lord is so in your favor lately—"

"Bellatrix," Voldemort interrupted coldly, and the response from the woman was so immediate that Harry looked straight at her now, shocked.

Her hands fell from her sides and her chin tucked, her shoulders even sagging slightly as she peered in tender submission to her Lord. "…Yes, my Lord?"

"Lucius has done me a great favor in the last year," the dark wizard spoke slowly, but the chill to his tone made even Harry's stomach sink. "So I will overlook his mistakes, for the time being. _You, _however—" She flinched. "Have done nothing as of late to prove yourself to me as he has done, so you may not find yourself as _lucky._"

"My—my Lord, I waited in Azkaban for you, always proclaiming my—"

"This is not the time!" Voldemort snarled at her, suddenly vicious, and she was not the only one to recoil at this inflection. He pulled himself back up straight and continued much more collectively, "Azkaban was indeed a _touching _show of your dedication, Bellatrix, but not very useful, rotting away, were you?"

"N…no, my Lord. I'm so sorry, my Lord."

"_Master is angry_," Nagini hissed quietly from the floor, "_May I bite one of them? It's been too long since you've let me bite anyone—even the snakes you buy me to eat never put of a very good fight. Only those little fire breathing ones do. Why can't you get me one of those again?"_

"You'll do well to keep quiet about your opinions, especially when they are inspired by jealousy," continued the Dark Lord, and Harry saw from the corner of his eye that Lucius had stood up straight after his humiliation, preening under his leader's praise. "Now, onto the matter at hand…"

Harry looked back to the man, the lean, pale figure having turned toward him once more.

"_Small snakes, they are, but feisty—what are they called again?"_

Voldemort ignored his snake's rambling, though she swayed beside him eagerly, in a way the others in the room may have taken as threatening. "You are a skilled Occlumens, young Lestrange, though I am curious as to where you might have learned to perfect such a skill."

"My father hired a tutor," Harry replied with relative ease, "Of course, we disposed of the Mudblood immediately after she had finished the task. Her wand belongs to me now."

His stomach twisted into a variety of knots as he spoke, but he did not let on.

"_Pyroniasths! Ah yes, those nasty little buggers. They spit and squirm like nothing else. Well, except for humans, most of the time, but Master only lets me bite them on special occasions…"_ The sulky tone in the snake's voice was both amusing and disconcerting.

"Of course," Voldemort's mouth twitched, his expression approving, "And I suppose, seeing as no one knew of your existence before this, and considering how very secluded your Father has been, and rightly so, that…you have been able to practice your magic undetected?"

"Yes," Harry answered, and added, "My father is very intelligent when it comes to the facts surrounding magic and has taught me well, though I obviously had to teach myself the practical aspects."

Rodolphus shifted, as though he wanted to ask a question himself, but did not dare interrupt his master. Bellatrix was looking at him with more than a hint of annoyance, while Severus Snape watched, still so silent and dark that he seemed to be a shadow, though the open room really had no room for any.

"_Master, I know they're difficult to find, but I have been quite good lately, have I not? You're busy now, I know, but when you can, order that blond one to find me some Pyroniasths. It's been dreadfully boring lately, with only conjured rats and snakes to play with. No real life in them."_

Those eyes narrowed a fraction at Harry, "And your mother?"

"Did not want to be associated as the witch who had bared the child of a squib, or possibly a Lestrange, and obliviated my Father after leaving me on his doorstep with a note stating simply that I was, indeed, his." Harry said distantly, with a scene in his mind's eye of a similar woman dumping him at the hospital.

On the ground. In the cold. With nothing but a blanket.

Voldemort regarded him for a long moment, looking him over with a calculating gaze of such intensity Harry forgot to breathe for several seconds. A moment later, Voldemort was making a gesture with his long white hands dismissively.

"I see. Wizard thought you may be, you have exhausted your importance," Voldemort nodded at someone that Harry could not see, and a man that obviously was the head of the Avery family stepped up beside Harry dutifully. "Escort him back to the first floor, where he belongs. He is of no use to me."

A skinny, strong hand wrapped around Harry's upper arm tightly, forcing Harry to speak quickly.

He was not just another teenage wizard that the Dark Lord could simply ignore until they had proven themselves with a show of violence and brainless loyalty. At least, that was what he was meant to show the man now, this moment, for the sake of his father's reputation and he found himself for some reason keen to show Voldemort what he could do, just as he had been excited at the prospect of showing them that he was a wizard.

Just as that enthusiasm made a home in his gut, guilt surrounded it. This was not a man that he should have wanted praise from, but like Lucius, like _everyone _here, Voldemort had managed to ensnare him with the sheer force of his power.

_Get a grip, Harry._

Harry also knew, while it might be lovely to shove it in the face of these mindless lackeys, that it would be smartest to keep his ability a secret as long as he could from the other members of the inner circle. But, to earn Voldemort's approval, the man would have to know.

Even as he spoke, a sinking sensation started in Harry's stomach, as he revealed his secret to the man before Avery could pull him more than a few steps back.

"My lord," Harry spoke hastily, though Voldemort seemed too bored to cast him another glance just yet, "I've read that _Pyroniasths_ are quite plentiful in Brazil…they're partial to rain forests."

The world seemed to spin with the quickness with which Voldemort turned on him.

"He's mad!" Bellatrix laughed loudly, at first not noticing the fierceness in those crimson eyes and having taken Harry's words as rambling nonsense.

"Don't waste the Dark Lord's time, idiot boy—" Avery scowled, yanking him back another foot even as Harry looked piercingly into the red eyes attempting to penetrate his mind. It was no use. He was a fortress. His father had made sure of it.

"Release him." Voldemort suddenly snarled, his shock hidden beneath a mask of vehemence. Avery looked up, bewildered at the sudden change of demand. "_Now!"_

Harry found himself unrestricted a split second later.

"Rigel." It was the first time that the Dark Lord had used his name in the twenty minutes since he had been introduced. Harry's heart raged as he was regarded, sized up a third time by the most powerful wizard he had ever encountered. The first time, he had been analyzed as a potential puppet for torture. The second had been as a wizard child, no more interesting than the team of would-be followers that flocked on the floor below him.

But now, _now _he was being assessed with something akin to fascination. He was a Parselmouth, after all, and he had let Voldemort know as much with just that simple sentence of what everyone else in the room assumed to be babble.

"You," Voldemort stated with an almost grim tone to his voice, "…will come with me."

In the next instant Voldemort had spun on his heel, appearing to glide across the floor as though he was not touching the marble at all, the snake that was twice as long as the grown wizard was tall slithered at his side as they passed through the group of baffled Death Eaters. A pair of double doors opened with a wave of Voldemort's hand to allow the two to enter.

"_Where are we going? Master, why is that boy coming with us? I've never seen him before. Are you going to let me eat him?"_

The room Harry entered a moment later was decorated spaciously with expensive, uncomfortable looking furniture, thick rugs separating a seating area from an elegant glass chess table near a sharp, clean fireplace that was strangely the coldest thing in a room full of hard corners, too neat book shelves where each book was the same size and color, and striking pieces of art modern. There were a few elegant but strange statues, two marble and classic looking and three silver abstracts that Harry would not have classified as art.

There were no paintings to spy on them in this room, Harry suddenly realized, as the door shut behind him with a nearly inaudible click.

Voldemort turned around to face him, the intensity in those eyes stronger than ever, so much so that his ruby eyes seemed to glow with the sheer force of his stare.

"You understand Parseltongue," Voldemort spoke in a whisper that had nothing to do with trying to keep quiet. While Harry had heard him raise his voice with Bellatrix, he had a feeling that this soft tone was reserved for gentle attempts at prying the truth out of people, firmly but eloquently, and had a capacity for cruelty equal to or greater than a shout.

"_I speak it, as well,_" Harry replied in that very language, making it quite clear that he had not simply _learned_ it. He knew from a series of books written by Salazar Slytherin himself that his father had made him read almost a year ago, that one could indeed learn to comprehend the language of snakes. But only one that was born to it could actually _speak_ it.

This seemed to both delight and enrage the figure before him and he found Voldemort standing only a foot before him, the difference in their height more pronounced than ever.

"You understand," Voldemort said softly, with absolutely no emotion to his voice, "That I could simply take your ability as a _threat_ and no one but your squib father would question by choice to kill you. Most purebloods are descendants of one kind or another from our snake speaking ancestors, but the ability is latent in all but you and I. Why should I allow you to _continue?_"

Harry had not considered that. He had thought that, if he had actually managed to tell Voldemort about the trait they shared, that he would at least at the start of receiving his good graces…Well. There had been no accounting for the insanity he saw in those eyes.

He swallowed, "…I am yours, my Lord."

The spots of flesh where Voldemort should have had eyebrows rose. "Are you?"

"I only wish to serve you," Harry rather suddenly knelt, keeping his face upturned but allowing Voldemort's sheer size to dominate him even more. "My father has taught me well my entire life, and through him I have become your loyal servant. Please, do not take my gift as a threat, but as…_your _gift."

The man seemed to consider this for a long moment.

Harry watched him from behind the lenses of his glasses, his heart pounding furiously.

"I cannot trust you," He said, and the dark wizard straightened his own posture, to raise his own height even more, "Your mind is completely closed to me. You are _hiding _something, boy, and I am not interested in those that wish to keep any information from me. A loyal servant has no secrets from his _Master_, Rigel."

Ah. Harry had been expecting that much. Voldemort was paranoid, sure that others were out to trick him because that was what he would have done, if the situation were reversed. Approval of ability and power had been earned, but Harry knew that Voldemort would never begin to trust him if he did not give him a reason. Harry was not trying to trick the man, not _really, _it was not as if he was a spy. He was simply attempting to cover his true heritage, because…this was what Rabastan wanted.

The feelings that Harry felt for his adoptive father were complex at best, but no matter what, he was compelled to do this. To _be _this.

In any case, he had planned accordingly for this very moment.

His features blanched, he couldn't control it, because he had…honestly not wanted it to come to this, even though in his gut he had known that it would, if he survived the encounter.

"I will…gladly allow you to see my secret, my Lord. I do not mean to hide anything from you, I…" Harry told him in a sickly way that he was not sure whether or not he was feigning.

He did not finish, and instead raised his eyes to complete a connection with those vivid blood red twins.

He allowed a glimpse, just a small scene of his life with Rabastan that would make it clear what their relationship, what their dark secret was. It should appease Voldemort's curiosity, because it was a…simple explanation, one starkly honest and disgusting enough to be a suitable explanation. After all, the truth was too convoluted and complex for anyone to guess, as there were parts of it that Harry himself did not know. This one secret should be enough to cover for rest.

He hoped.

Harry grimaced as he felt the slimy violation of his mind as Voldemort watched the section of memory that he had allowed him to see. It only took five seconds at the most , but Harry ducked his head to quell the nausea from remembering things that he had done well to tuck away.

"He had you learn Occlumency to hide…" Voldemort, however, did not complete his sentence, and instead looked contemplative for a short period of time..

Harry had no expected sympathy, had not _wanted _it, which was just as well, as he did not receive it.

"How… _boring_."

There was something wrong with Voldemort. Something that wasn't all _there—_and not just the fact he appeared to be majorly mentally unstable. There was something inhuman about him, something that Dark Magic alone could not do to a person. At least his apathy in the face of Harry's …mistreatment at the hands of Rabastan seemed to indicate that it would be more effort than it was worth, to share it with anyone. Unless Harry provoked him somehow, Voldemort would likely keep that scrap of darkness in his pocket for a time when he could use it against harry.

Harry's scar throbbed, hard, when Voldemort suddenly lifted his chin after a long moment of silence. The pad of a long index finger pressed against the underside of his chin, and when Harry met his eyes again, his Occlumency walls were back in place.

"You will attend Hogwarts this year, Rigel," Voldemort told him suddenly, the look on his face turning to one of finality and perhaps even a glint of excitement.

The shock at such a statement seemed to hit him in the face as if the man had slapped him across the face.

_What?_

He controlled the urge to simply sputter that dumbly. Instead, he licked his dry lips before he spoke, and his tongue still tasted like bile.

"I…" Rabastan would not like that, not at all, but Harry could not help but feel elated at the prospect, both _because _Rabastan would loathe allowing him into the world (but he would _have _to, wouldn't he?) and because it was…_Hogwarts._ "Yes, of course, if that is what …his Lordship desires."

Voldemort's bone structure hinted at a degree of beauty despite his waxy skin, bald head and eerie eyes, but when he grinned, he did so in a way that morphed his face into an expression so deformed that Harry could no longer see a trace of humanity, "You will be of use to me, after all."

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><p><strong>Okay, so, first of all-I WENT TO MEGA CON AND TOOK A PICTURE WITH TOM FELTON. HE HAD HIS ARM AROUND ME. GAH. ONLY ALAN RICKMAN COULD HAVE BEEN MORE SQUEE-INDUCING. This message has been brought to you by Fangirls-Not-So-Anonymous. Ahem.<strong>

**Now, onto the meat. As for why Rabastan hasn't adopted Harry legally or magically, is because –as you can see- he intends to pass Harry off as his real son. I don't think there is the same legal system for adopting children in the Wizarding world and legally adopting Harry would be not only leaving a paper trail but legally admitting he's not his biological son, which would mean Harry being his son would be less impressive. And Blood adoption is fan-created and isn't going to exist in my story. **

**Also…I love Draco, but at fourteen he is a douche. That hasn't changed. With any luck he'll be developed into a suitable character and friend (hopefully, maybe) for Harry. Because I love to include him, and he served a pretty important purpose in this chapter.**

**While I do love Slytherins-are-good-stories, I'm going to be realistic about this. Although I hate the 'all Slytherins are bad' stereotype perpetuated for many of the actual Harry Potter novels, I'm also not going to say they can do no wrong either, which is a common fan theme. There also will be no bashing of any sort, each character will have their good characteristics and bad ones. **

**I hope you enjoyed all of the characters introduced in this chapter! There will be more to come. Actually nervous about the reception of this chapter, because it is so long winded and so much happens. I've reread it over and over but I feel off about it, like I've forgotten something. Reassure me? Or…point it out?**

**Not getting feedback is like an 'Avada Kedavra' between the shoulder blades. I can't live with it!**

**-Toes**

_**P.S. I am looking for a beta, someone not only to check for spelling/continuity errors, but to discuss my plot with and bounce ideas off of. Please tell me if you'd be interested in your review or a private message.**_


	11. Presumption

****_**Shifting of the Plate**_

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><p><strong>Chapter Warning(s):<strong> _Biggotry/Racism_

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><p><strong>Chapter Eleven-<strong>Presumption

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><p>Rabastan had not been the least bit happy about Voldemort's orders. Harry had pretended for the rest of the summer that he, too, was upset that he was forced to go along with the plan because Voldemort had ordered it, which meant the choice was not, and had never been, theirs.<p>

But, in truth, the next couple of weeks filled him with an elation that he had never felt before.

Rabastan had reluctantly sent an owl to the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry and paid the tuition in full, though Harry noticed that he only paid for a single year of schooling, perhaps hoping that this time next year Voldemort would no longer have any need for him to attend.

He had gone to Diagon Alley on his own, which was relatively uneventful, bought everything on the supply list—everything from a cauldron, to books, to an entire set of Hogwarts robes and a _wand._

One of his very own.

Harry kept Mary's with him, at the bottom of his trunk, as a reminder of all that he had caused and what he was. Whenever he pulled out a new set of robes, or dug for books, he would see it there, and it would bring to mind what he had done. He didn't deserve to forget. His new wand did not feel dirty in his hand, even though Ollivander had given him a curious and suspicious look when gold and red sparks had flown from the tip of it after nearly two hours of trying one wand after another. Only after they had gone through half of the magic sticks in entire store, by pure process of elimination, they had come to his perfect match.

Eleven inches long, made of holly, with a phoenix feather center, which was, apparently, the brother core of Lord Voldemort's wand.

After that particular discovery, Harry had erased Ollivander's memory of the last two hours. This was one particular wand he could not allow the man to remember selling. He had sighed with relief when he realized that the spell had been cast properly. Memory Charms were tricky and Harry had never actually cast one before, but he had managed it with such finesse that Ollivander maintained the rest of his memories perfectly. Harry still felt guilty for it, but he knew he could not afford to let the man to blab about such a precarious subject.

The days that had followed Diagon alley and preceded the Hogwarts express had been filled with furious studying of the school books and a sulking Rabastan. The man seemed to cling to him even more than usual, asking for constant reassurance from his adoptive son that he was not eager to leave him, when in fact that was exactly what Harry was. When the day finally came it was like a weight had been taken off of his shoulders, and despite his heavy trunk, his steps as he approached the station were light.

As he passed through the barrier that lead to platform 9 ¾ on September 1st, it was as though he could feel his wand_ too _much through the fabric of his robes, as though it was reprimanding him for his conduct two weeks ago.

Harry was already in his Hogwarts robes, though his tie and the rim of his vest were black because he had not been Sorted into any particular House. The great metal beast that was the Hogwarts Express stood there conspicuously, his cloak licking his heels as he slowed to a stop, because it was…enchanting. His gateway to another world, his transport to get hundreds of kilometers away from that blasted cabin.

It was nothing special to look at, old fashioned and gaudily painted, but it was _wonderful._

The hustle and bustle of students and parents passing him, putting their trunks away in the cargo holds and waving goodbye through the windows was lost on him. Rabastan had not accompanied him; Harry suspected it was too painful a place for him, though Harry still had the man's scent on him from his affectionate goodbye. Rabastan consistently smelled of dust and old parchment and, even now, the boy could smell it on his robes.

Harry cast a quiet '_Wingardium Leviosa' _on his trunk to lift it up the steps that led up and onto the train, but only after practically every single student had already piled inside. He'd lost himself in thoughts of this school that had practically been a fairytale to him until now, and when he climbed up and into the long hall of compartments, he felt relief wash over him like a bucket of warm water had been poured upon his head.

The doors closed and the train began to move before Harry had settled, pulling his trunk along slowly as he peered into compartments to look for a place to sit.

Many compartments in the section he'd started in were filled to the brim with seventh and sixth year students, the rooms all packed with old friends who didn't mind squishing together if it meant they could stay in the same compartment.

A blond, disagreeable looking boy in Hufflepuff robes shut the door before Harry could make eye contact and a gaggle of nervous first years had all shoved themselves together. A seventh year Slytherin and his girlfriend, a younger Ravenclaw girl, frowned at him as he passed as though to tell him not to dare try to join them, while the girl smiled and waved so sweetly that Harry was a bit worried for her.

Harry didn't bother with the people that blatantly weren't interested in making his acquaintance and instead just continued, pausing briefly when a boy with red hair caught his eye as he laughed heartily at something his friend across from him had said.

Three boys, Harry noted as the train left the station and began to truly pick up speed. One with brown shaggy hair, one with a dark blond crew cut, and the last with bright, vibrant red hair and extensive freckles covering every inch of skin that wasn't already covered by his worn robes.

Of course, the red hair and threadbare robes were distinct signs of a Weasley, but Harry pushed that thought out of his mind with ease.

"Hullo," said the redhead, as he was the only one facing the direction Harry had come from. "Who're you? You're about our age, aren't you?"

The dark haired boy and the blond turned their heads toward Harry, "Oh, hello, mate."

"Come outta nowhere, din'cha?" said the (now noticeably Irish) blond boy. "Haven't seen you before, have I?"

"No, I think not," Harry said, finding it hard to reel in the excessively proper English that had been pounded into his brain. He could see them already beginning to decide he was a snob, "I'm new here, you see."

They shared a look.

"New student? At Hogwarts? That's _not_ a first year?" exclaimed the blond with fascination, "Did you get expelled from elsewhere, or something?"

"Or…something," Harry responded, feeling something akin to nervousness bubble in his gut.

No. No, that feeling was not _akin_ to it at all. It just plain _was._

He could not remember ever feeling this awkward. He was not used to being around people his own age, not anymore, and even when he had been talking with the group of Slytherin teenagers at Voldemort's party, there had been a purpose for the interaction.

There was no purpose here.

Except, perhaps, to…_make friends. _Somehow, that was more daunting to Harry than trying to earn Voldemort's approval.

"Right, mate," responded the Weasley, blinking. He wasn't very bright, already tall for his age, but there was nothing particularly threatening about him. Nothing _noticeable, _either, other than the hair, but he was friendly enough just the same. "Well, are you looking for a place to sit, then?"

"We've got room," added the blond with a crooked grin, standing and moving to grab Harry's trunk for him. He gestured to the other two accordingly. "I'm Seamus. This here is Ron, and that's Dean. Welcome to Hogwarts, I suppose."

"Yeah," Ron nodded, giving him a smile as well. "Welcome. Don't be so tense, mate."

Harry wanted to stop Seamus from grabbing his trunk, because he was quite capable of moving it himself, but he bit his tongue. He didn't want to be rude. Being rude was not the way to make friends, and Merlin, that was what he was doing, wasn't it?

"Shy one, yeah?" Seamus laughed, gripping his trunk and tugging it into the room. "Your turn to tell us your name, then—"

Before Harry could even open his mouth, the brown eyes of the Irishman lowered to the embroidery on his trunk.

His pale face fell abruptly.

"Rigel…Lestrange?" Seamus read hollowly, not even lifting his eyes. Indeed, in silver cursive was Harry's alias pressed into the sleek black surface of his trunk.

Dean sat up straighter and Ron Weasley blanched, looking like he was choking on a chocolate frog that had tried to jump while still inside his oral cavity.

"_Lestrange_?" the redhead declared loudly, forming the word in the same way that Malfoy had said '_Squib'_ a little over a month previously.

"Sorry," Seamus suddenly spat in a fashion that said he was quite the opposite, shoving the trunk he had been moving for him so hard that it toppled over and landed heavily on Harry's toes. "We don't want _Slytherins_ in our compartment."

Harry opened his mouth to tell them that he couldn't be a Slytherin, because he hadn't been _Sorted _yet, but before he could, the compartment door was slammed in his face violently.

It took a moment for Harry to recover from the blatant show of rejection, but it was easy enough to pick up his trunk, pulling it off his aching toes and continuing down the line of compartments. Many of the doors were closed by now, and the train racing at a constant speed, one that it would most likely maintain until they reached Hogsmeade station.

He would simply have to find another compartment. Perhaps one to himself, if he had to, but judging by the silhouettes he could make out through the windows of the rooms, the train had just as many seats as it needed and no more. He would be forced to interact with someone or another, and would have to risk yet another person being turned off by his name.

Two younger boys with cameras around their neck tried to beckon him in kindly, but Harry turned them down due to the loud underclassmen that filled the booth, laughing sharply and taking pictures of each other eagerly. Another group of girls, the prefect's compartment, both groups looking at him with equal expressions of '_Not bloody likely'_.

It was three cars down that Harry came across another open door, but he only caught it open by a small margin. One of the girls that inhabited it was just about to close the door when she spotted him. She was also already dressed in her robes, and she gave him a small nod.

A Mudblood, then.

_No, _Harry practically shouted at himself inside his mind. He had been around the word too much, but he was among _real _people now, people with feelings. People that, like him, were offended by the slur. He could not be immune to it, not here. _Muggleborn. Or possibly a Halfblood._

"Are you looking for a seat?" she asked him kindly, though her posture and her hand on her hip told him that she was guarded and not someone to be messed with, "We have some room in here, if you'd like."

Harry didn't answer immediately, instead waiting until he was parallel with the door and standing directly in front of the girl. She had a lot of hair, light brown and frizzy from the humidity outside. Or perhaps it was always liked that. She was actually rather pretty, though she did nothing to emphasize her looks, and the thick book saving her seat just behind her said that she was most likely the academic sort.

He looked over her shoulder and saw, to his chagrin, yet another Weasley. A girl this time, though, small of stature and sitting cross legged next to yet another girl, with a blue striped tie and overly long blonde hair that was due for a trim and a wash. Only the redheaded girl appeared to be overly concerned with her grooming. Harry thought that _maybe_ that meant there was a better chance of them looking passed appearances—his name—and finally met the large, intelligent brown eyes of the girl who had offered him a place.

"Thank you," Harry finally responded, deciding to take a chance with this compartment, and allowing the start of a courteous, pleasant smile to grace his face.

The girl stepped aside to allow him to pass, introducing herself as she did so, "I'm Hermione Granger, by the way. What is your—?"

But Harry had not stepped forward and his lips had never lifted into more than the twitch at a corner. Instead he stared at the boy that Hermione had revealed by stepping aside, and the raven-haired boy couldn't help the lump that formed in his throat. Damn it. He'd been so…_close_, but there, sitting across from the two girls, was a boy that Harry knew to be Neville Longbottom.

The son of two Aurors that were tortured to insanity by Harry's aunt. Adoptive aunt, and even then, only by marriage, but that…none of that would matter, he knew.

He didn't want to attempt it.

Neville was a timid boy, Harry could tell by the fidgeting and squirming, and while Harry could handle pure ignorance and boorishness, he did not know how he would take it if the boy was…_frightened _of him. He was quite sure that no amount of persuasion could ever make the other boy forgive the fact that he even shared a last name with that horrible witch, the woman that had taken his parents from him and only recently been broken out of Azkaban —

Harry just …couldn't. He didn't even want to _try._

"I…meant," Harry amended as politely and coolly as he possibly could, "Thank you, but _no,_ thank you. I have a seat further down the train."

With that, he was walking even more quickly down the hall and toward the next car. He could almost hear the confusion that he had caused the three girls and Neville. His father had actually spoken proudly of his brother's wife's escapades, telling Harry the story with glee, as though the Longbottoms had deserved it simply for being on the opposite side. The…_wrong _side.

Just thinking about it made Harry ill.

He couldn't face that boy.

It was then, as Harry disappeared into the next set of booths, that he realized his situation. Being who he was, who the world thought he was, meant that the sort of people he _wanted _to befriend would hate him. The good people, the Muggleborns and the Muggle-Lovers, would not be interested in getting along with someone whose family was known to be Death Eaters and Voldemort sympathizers. Until months ago his aunt and uncle had been in Azkaban, saturated in the misery of having Dementors nearby constantly. Although Harry was not what they assumed he was, he could not openly flaunt himself as a Muggle Lover either, lest word get back to his father—or worse, the Dark Lord.

And those that would befriend him were the very same people that his father idolized. The bigoted Slytherins, sons and daughters of Death Eaters and other snooty purebloods that would now most likely attempt to gain his favor even after blatantly attacking him at the summer's ball.

But Harry had _seen _them for what they really were, hadn't he?

So for now he settled himself in a small space that was meant for, he guessed, stowing away the trolley that the attendant was currently circulating the train with. He wasn't hungry, and was in fact feeling sick to his stomach as he leaned against the wall, holding his trunk close to his waist and closing his eyes. The hum of students chatting happily about their summers was pleasant, but also depressing, because he was not part of it.

Harry didn't know how to be part of it.

He was reminded of the children at the orphanage, of Tony and Beth, his only real Muggle friends. He wondered where they were, hoped against all hopes that they would be on the train somewhere, that, miraculously, they would have had a teacher show up to their foster families and introduce them to what was now Harry's world, so that they could escape to Hogwarts too. They would know that Harry was…well, _Harry._ They would know him. He wouldn't be so alone, then.

He knew that such a thing would not happen.

A pretty Asian Ravenclaw girl in a group of girls looked at him as she passed him by, giving him a sheepish expression and gesturing to the packed compartment. Harry didn't pay her any mind.

At least, Harry consoled himself, he was out of the Cabin. This train was his literal ticket out of Rabastan's grimy hold, and though he could never tell anyone how happy that made him, he let that euphoria swell in his chest and fill the void where the company of other wizards and witches his age should have been.

He was going to Hogwarts. That was all that mattered. He had a task to complete, yes, but he would be learning, he would be surrounded by other children his age, and…Maybe he could find someone, anyone, who would accept him as both who he was and who he was supposed to be—

"Oh, my! What are you doing out here, dear?"

The voice broke through Harry's reverie rather sharply, and he opened his eyes to see a plump old woman standing there and looking at him reprovingly. The trolley woman was done selling her sweets to the children of Hogwarts and Harry was now in her way.

"You need to take a seat, dearie. We've got six more hours of our journey and it just isn't safe," she told him. Harry did his best not to sigh. Sighing was inappropriate at any juncture, never meant for any sort of polite company, just like 'er's' and 'um's'.

"Right. I'll get on that. My apologies."

Harry was quickly off in the other direction as the trolley woman's face shifted into concern. He dragged his trunk behind him for a while before casting a spell on it to make it lighter for a bit, because it seemed to have been growing heavier with every train car he passed through.

He didn't know where to go.

Everywhere was full, and he thought about just…sitting in the bathroom, but he knew his trunk would not fit inside it. Besides, how pathetic would something like that be, if he was discovered?

The train rumbled beneath his dress shoes, bumping so violently at some points that he nearly toppled over. He held with one hand to the side of the wall, letting his fingertips brush over the smooth barricades and doors just in case he had to grip tightly to keep himself upright.

Then, as he passed one compartment in particular, his mind acknowledged a voice from within it.

A groan of exasperation filled his chest.

He didn't know why he honed in on that particular voice. It wasn't as thought he was delighted to hear it. Just the opposite, in fact, but all the same he recognized it, pausing outside the door to listen to the sentence it was in the middle of completing.

"—and _then _I told Flint that if he wanted to argue about who was a better Seeker, we might as well take a match outside. Course, the poor bloke is so messed up he could barely see straight, let alone well enough to find the Snitch."

Draco Malfoy. The snobby, mean-spirited boy that had been all too eager to throw him under the bus if it meant making himself look good in front of his friends. Here he was, bragging all over again.

Harry did not _want _to sit with him, but he honestly saw no other option before him.

And so, taking a deep breath that puffed up his chest for a moment, Harry released it slowly and narrowed his eyes at the door as he let out his breath slowly and decided on how he was going to approach the Death Eater's children within. No doubt Draco had been reprimanded by his father for assuming Harry was a Squib and now knew that the raven-haired boy was, indeed, a wizard. Draco had probably henceforth told his friends that they had been duped. Lucius might have also been informed that Harry would be attending Hogwarts, might have been told about Harry's task, though he doubted it had been passed onto Draco, at least not completely.

Fine.

Harry was going to do it.

Without knocking or giving any indication that he was coming in, he slid the door open.

Pansy Parkinson and Blaise Zabini were both in the compartment with the blond, the female sitting by Draco's side while Zabini's long, lanky form was stretched out across the seat adjacent. He did, however, sit up in surprise, leaving the window seat open, as Pansy gasped and Draco's eyebrows shot upward.

Harry did not speak or ask to sit down, instead striding inside and sitting down next to the window with as much elegance and confidence as he could possibly muster.

Once he was seated, he allowed his wand to slip out of his sleeve where he had tucked it away. He muttered a single charm again in order to lift his trunk onto the rack with the other three above their heads. Harry flicked his wand once more and the door closed, an easy enough gesture to complete without the use of an actual spell, before putting his wand away again and directing his gaze out the window.

It seemed that the three Slytherins did not know how to react to this.

_Good,_ he thought complacently.

"Ah," Pansy started, staring at him with wide eyes, then looked between the two other boys and decided that it was perhaps better not to comment just yet.

The Slytherin girl's dark hair was pulled into pig tails tied with thin green ribbons, presumably to match her robes when she put them on, and she pulled at one of them as though this was a gesture for one of the two boys to say something. Harry was the only one currently in his Hogwarts uniform, and he straightened his tie before he averted his eyes, looking very interested in the blue afternoon sky.

Draco, after a long silence, began to speak.

"Look, Lestrange, I wanted to—"

"No," Harry interrupted, as Draco had interrupted him several times during Voldemort's ball. He knew what was coming and he wanted to trample the urge before he grew so annoyed that he hexed the spoiled brat and ended up kicked out of the only stall he was half welcome in. "_You _look. I'm sitting with you because I don't know anyone else, not because I want to be your _friend._"

Draco looked taken aback, as though he could not imagine a person that did not want to be his friend, and Harry continued. "I'm a wizard, you know that now, which is _fantastic, _and I'm sure your father told you to befriend me because of the—because of _his _interest in me."

The blond opened his mouth to contradict him, but Harry added before he could continue.

"Which is perfectly fine with me," Harry crossed his arms over his chest and settled down fully into the seat across from Draco. The cushions were comfortable enough, easy to maneuver himself into a position in which he could easily cross one leg over the other without brushing any of the other occupants of the room, though he could not help but wish there was some sort of partition to place between Zabini and himself. "You can write to your dad and say that I've forgiven you, that we're best friends, but don't you forget for one second –_any of you—_that I've seen your true faces. You can't take that back."

"We thought you were—" Pansy began to tell him.

"Yes, I know what you thought I was," Harry lifted his chin, "That's what my _father is_. I am not interested in your excuses, or your…_attempts_ at scripted apologies. As I said, I am sitting in this seat because I need _it, _not because I need _you._"

Zabini seemed to be both smart and proud enough to not try to defend his previous actions, perhaps because he knew he had been in the wrong, but more than likely his silence came from the fact the Slytherin thought he had _not_ been, and that he would treat any Squib just the same.

Draco cleared his throat, shifting in his seat briefly and peering at the dark-haired boy coolly for a long moment, considering appealing to him once more.

Then, after a period, he seemed to think better of it and he moved his gaze back to Zabini, ignoring Harry's existence as he continued to describe his impromptu match with Flint.

Harry spent the rest of the trip staring in silence out the window, watching as the sun set and the sky gave way to darkness, and then eventually, took note of the decline of the train's speed. The trip had been pleasant enough despite his present company. They spoke of occurrences that had happened last year, a year that had seemed boring in comparison to their second, when Draco had become Slytherin's seeker and they had gotten eerie messages from someone claiming to be the _Heir of Slytherin._ Apparently, two people had been petrified and a girl whose name was Marietta –or so the three Death Eaters to-be thought, having went back and forth for several moments, wondering if was Maria or Marnie –had actually disappeared toward the end of their second year and still had not been found despite thorough investigation, which had taken place all throughout their third. Draco and his friends had found that _exciting, _though Harry thought the werewolf they lamented teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts was much more interesting.

After a while, Draco and Blaise had begun talking about the Quidditch World Cup that they had attended during the summer, which Harry secretly enjoyed listening to. Pansy had fallen asleep about halfway through the trip—or at least pretended to in order to leave the boys to their sports talk.

As the final half hour of the trip rolled around, he watched each of the Slytherins leave the compartment to change before returning in their pristine robes they had no doubt bought in Diagon Alley brand new. Some part of the adopted Lestrange wanted to be disgusted with their wealth, but he could not manage it without feeling guilty himself, because his own robes were made from expensive fabric and fitted precisely to his measurements as well. Harry left the compartment last, simply to make sure that he was in the restroom when they pulled into Hogsmead station, sitting on the closed toilet until the rumble of hundreds of students faded away.

_Come on, Harry, _a little voice in his mind chided him, _you went so confidently into a meeting with Lord Voldemort but you can't face a bunch of children and school teachers?_

Merlin, he felt like a complete idiot.

Like a bumbling, blushing girl with a crush—and on a _school_ no less. What was wrong with him? Why couldn't he put that pureblood Lestrange mask back into place?

He could.

He _must._

And he did, though it took more effort than he would have otherwise expected.

He supposed the reason was rooted in the fact that he did not want to _be _Lestrange to these people. He would, given his way, rather be seen as a Mud—_Muggleborn _nobody named Harry Owen from foster care. That way he could…make his own friends and enemies. His name would not be infamous and he would not have to pretend to be something he was not.

Harry let the footsteps of other students recede before he walked from the bathroom in the same fashion that he had entered Malfoy's ballroom, no matter how inappropriate it was. He didn't have his trunk with him anymore so it was a quick enough walk to a door and onto the platform, where the last of the students were disappearing behind trees.

About to follow them, he was shocked when a booming voice caught him off guard. He spun in the direction it had come from, quite sure that it was he who was being addressed.

"Oi, lad! You that fourth year student, I s'pose?" The voice was gruff and warm, giving Harry the image of wool. He had to tip his head up far to meet the dark eyes, though neither the night sky nor the bushy beard helped Harry take in the finer details of the giant man's features. "Been lookin' for you. Professor Dumbledore told me you'd be comin' 'round."

"That's me, yes," Harry could hear the curt tone to his own voice and winced internally. But, if the giant man noticed it, he did not let on.

"Rubeus Hagrid, Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts," he introduced himself proudly, his thick accent and equally thick facial hair muffling his words slightly as he turned to lead Harry towards the lake. "First years are a bit ahead of us, but they should be fine on their own for a while yet. Do hope no 'un falls in this year, though."

Harry noted that everyone else was headed in a different direction, into the trees and what looked like

"It's…nice to meet you, Professor Hagrid," Harry told him as they approached a boat on the edge of the lake, Hagrid climbing into it without preamble.

Harry looked at the small space that was left in the boat in front of Hagrid, and the man looked so sheepish that he did not dare insult him by complaining about the room. He climbed forward, holding his breath as he balanced himself, only releasing it when his rear was safely planted on a plank of wood.

"I'm Rigel," he introduced himself as casually as he could with his knees pressed against the giant's thick calves.

"Are you a Muggle born then?" Hagrid asked curiously as the boat began to sift through the water, cutting lines across the black water's surface in V-shaped ripples.

Harry looked up in surprise, "Why would you say that?"

"Well," Hagrid screwed up his face a bit as he responded, "Comin' to Hogwarts so late, I s'pose. Don't reckon it's something most pureblood or Halfblood families would do. Not that it happens often with Muggle families, either, mind."

With a name like _Rigel, _most people of a certain intellect would realize that he belonged to a Pureblood family (because they seemed to have a tradition of naming their children after stars, moons and constellations), but Harry found himself rather glad that Hagrid hadn't made the connection.

"I guess I'm sort of an odd case, then, aren't I?"

"I wouldn't worry too much about it," replied the professor, Harry's evasion flying straight over his head as he tried to comfort him. "M'sure you'll make loads o' friends, easy. Hogwarts's got a rumor mill, like most places y'go, but the kids here are right decent most o' the time."

Harry was not appeased, but he appreciated the effort more than the man would ever know.

"Right. Thank you. " was the future student's calm response. "I'm just …glad to be here, really."

"Finest school of the lot," Hagrid stated agreeably, as they came around the bend and through a curtain of moss.

It was when they had exited the curtain of grey and green moss that the castle he would be staying in for the next nine months of his life finally revealed to him. Harry held in his gasp of awe at the sight of it, the moonlight sparkling against the late and reflecting off of the swooping walls of the castle. It was something from a fairytale, and at the sight of it he felt like he had walked right into one. He had only read about it, seen painting with the castle in the distance, but words and paint could never capture the beauty before him.

It was all tall towers and high ceilings, brilliantly shining stones and bristling branches of the trees surrounding the castle on most sides. Even the Quidditch pitch, from what Harry could glimpse of it from behind a huge, gnarled Willow tree, was spacious and magnificent. He could see a small pier that led to a grand door, one that was currently standing open as a woman with a slightly tilted witch's hat gestured a flock of small children through.

Hagrid was smiling contentedly, as though he had taken this job just to see the look on the children's faces when they saw Hogwarts castle in all of its majesty for the first time.

As they parked the boat at the wooden pier, the giant allowed Harry to climb out of the boat first before he did so himself—Harry saw that this order was intentional, as when the humongous figure tried stepping out, the boat rocked and nearly twisted over upside down.

The witch frowned at Hagrid sternly, gaze flickering to Harry for only a moment, before speaking to the man, "What took you so long? The other students are growing restless waiting on the first years."

"M'sorry, Professor McGonagall. Had'ta search for this 'un." Hagrid answered easily , patting Harry on the back almost playfully, which only earned him another unamused expression from McGonagall as the boy fought to stay upright under the weight of the hand. The male professor's friendliness was disconcerting, to say the least. Harry could not bring himself to trust that guileless look in Hagrid's dark eyes.

"Yes, well," McGonagall looked annoyed, but fondly so. Her indifferent tone was much more tolerable. "I suppose there's nothing to be done about it now. I'll lead him from here. You go on and take your seat, Hagrid."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Mr. Lestrange," McGonagall prompted briskly as she abruptly began walking inside the Entrance Hall, expecting that Harry would follow her.

Harry barely had time to register Hagrid's befuddled '_Huh?' _at the revelation of his last name before he was through the doors and standing at the back of the line, the tallest of all the new students, which was only suitable, considering he was the only fourteen-year-old among them.

A few first years shuffled nervously and scooted closer to one another. A couple of them seemed to be whispering amongst themselves about the nature of the Sorting test.

This was one thing that was also a mystery to Harry.

It was part of some unwritten code that the Sorting was supposed to be a surprise, and only the students that had already been through it were supposed to know what it entailed. Even the books Harry had read that were all about Hogwarts had not allowed this little detail to slip.

His stomach did flip flops within his belly and his heart seemed to be knocking at his throat.

It was not the test he was worried about. If anything, he was a million times more prepared for whatever practical or written exam they might be given than these first years. It was which House he would be placed in, and if he could possibly direct his fate in any way, that was making his pulse hammer in his ears.

Not knowing was _killing _him.

McGonagall recited a speech he was sure she gave to every group of new students, looking between them all and listing the four Houses that it was possible to Sorted into before opening the doors and leading them through.

The dining area was huge and spacious, nothing intensely remarkable about the floor, the tall windows that he didn't doubt would open in the mornings to let the owls in to deliver mail, nor the floating candles that wafted about the room as the only source of light. The enchantment for that was simple enough. However, just above those candles was the legendary ceiling that he had read about in one of the many books he had devoured in order to prepare himself for this day. The ceiling was a work of art more than magic, Harry thought as he glanced up at it, doing his best not to look at the boys and girls that were probably curious about the older boy among the first years. He was sure, by the muttering at the Gryffindor table, that the three boys he had encountered were telling everyone within earshot just who he was.

Drawing his eyes away from the starlit ceiling, he found his eyes drawn to the Head Table where Hagrid's large and congenial face was prominent. Severus Snape was near him, then two empty chairs and a high backed chair where the Headmaster himself sat. Harry had read about him, though there seemed to be only his achievements after the fall of Grindelwald that were spoken about explicitly. The rest of the man's long life was a mystery to many people, because there were not many still around to speak of it.

After Harry was done surveying the professors, his eyes drew to a large, scruffy looking old hat set on a four-legged stool center stage.

His brow furrowed.

Then creased further still when a great rip in its fabric opened, and it began to _sing._

The silly rhyming tune told Harry nothing that he did not already know about the Houses and what they stood for, or the Founders and what their famed personality traits were. However, a stanza toward the end of its melody made him feel like his stomach had been gathered into a fist by a large, cold hand.

"So let me know what's in your hearts,

Not to mention, minds,

Don't worry about where you fit,

I have seen all kinds!"

This hat was going to look into his _mind?_ It would see Voldemort, it would see his foster families, it would see…Rabastan, and all the unsettling details that came with him? Harry only hoped to Merlin and whoever was listening that Occlumency worked against it.

Today, Harry decided, while it was certainly the beginning of the rest of his life, had not gone _ideally._

The hat finished with something amusing, from what Harry could tell, by the murmur of giggles that erupted briefly after it had spoken, but he hadn't been listening. He had been too busy inwardly panicking while making sure his facial features stayed as imperturbable as possible. There were two ways that this could possibly go wrong, and one was that he would be humiliated, that his world would crumble as that hat learned all of his secrets, and…even worse, perhaps, Harry would not fit _anywhere._

Perhaps he was too stupid, too cowardly, not ambitious or hard working enough. Perhaps the hat would laugh at him for even trying and he would be sent back to the train, back to the _Cabin, _where he would live the rest of his days out with only his father –

A first year was called up.

"_Ravenclaw!"_

Then another. "_Gryffindor!"_

And another, and another, then yet another. A string of names and shouts from the hat only made his stomach more twisted, colder than ever. The apprehension on the eleven-year-olds was apparent in the way they scrambled to their seats, less stressed than they had approached the stool, but still worried perhaps that the hat might change its mind.

"_Slytherin!" "Hufflepuff!" "Hufflepuff!" _"_Ravenclaw!" _

Only half a dozen more before him now, Harry counted from the corner of his eye.

_Merlin, _he might as well just turn back and save himself the mortification, shouldn't he? At least then it would be his choice. He would be an outcast by choice, not because he had been thrown out onto his ass.

"_Gryffindor!" "Hufflepuff!" "Gryffindor!" _

How many students had it been, now? There must have been forty or more first years in the group, but it had dwindled down to nothing. Just when Harry had gotten out of his head enough to look again at who was ahead of him, he heard—

"Lestrange, Rigel."

It was stated by the stern witch clearly and apathetically, though Harry was quite sure she was old enough to know her fair share about his adoptive family's history. There were a couple of gasps, more than a few mumbles, but even worse than that were the jaded looks that were cast in his direction that made his heart seem to fall through the floor and drag behind him like dead weight. They knew just where Harry was going, what little _slot _he belonged in. His name rang through the Great Hall as did the heels of his dress shoes on the floor after it.

He took one last look at the warm, glorious room around him – just in case he didn't have time to take a mental photograph before he was dragged out by his arms—and placed the hat on his head so that it fell over his eyes.

His Occlumency walls were in place. He was confident in them, he had to be: they had not failed him yet, he worked _daily _to keep himself at the top of his game. His mind was not the strongest, and in the last two years for reasons unknown to him, it had become increasingly harder to keep his mental walls up. He had managed it though, with diligent meditation before bed and just after he woke up in the morning. He couldn't just allow anyone with the power of Legilimency into his mind—

The deep voice in his mind startled him, _"…Those tricks don't work on me, boy. I can see all of your secrets. It's all here…in your head, letting me sort it out, letting me in. I know all that you can remember._"

The tension that pulled tightly in Harry's body was astounding. He could barely breathe.

"_I do not think I have ever seen anything more heartbreaking inside a child's mind,"_ commented the voice lowly, _"Never fear, though, I am not here to shed light on the dark corners of your life, Harry."_

And God, when was the last time he had been called by his _name?_

_Thank you,_ Harry thought, unsure of how to respond to an entity that just…knew. Knew it all. Not even Rabastan knew the details of Harry's life before him, had wanted to pretend it hadn't happened at all, like Harry had been _born _on his doorstep.

"_You know where you belong, I'm sure?_"The hat started to do its job, but with a weariness to its tone that said it was not enjoying having Harry's life presented to it. "_You have a good mind, but given the choice you'd be playing Quidditch instead of opening a book. Hard working, yes, but it doesn't define you. Brave, surely, after all that you have been though, but…there's a thirst. A thirst to prove yourself, to be the person you _want_ to be—I think it's obvious—"_

The thought occurred to Harry vibrantly, loudly, before he could stop himself from thinking it.

_Not Slytherin._

"_Not Sytherin?"_ The voice seemed surprised for a split second before commenting, "_No, no, I suppose not…Hm, if you're quite sure, Harry?"_

_Please._

"…_I wish you luck and happiness. If not Slytherin, it better be-_

_Gryffindor_!"

The final word echoed through the room like shattered glass.

After he placed the Sorting Hat back onto the stool gently, Harry walked to the table with his chin held level to the ground and his gait as confident as he could possibly make it, despite the feeling that he had swallowed an active Bludger. It was apparent through most of trek to the Gryffindor side of the room that the teachers were the only ones considerate enough to clap for him.

After a moment, however, a tinkering of disinclined applause came from the table he was approaching -but only because McGonagall had stood up and given a pointed, withering glare to the students of her House.

* * *

><p><strong>I'm pretty happy with this chapter! Mostly thanks to my beautiful betas, Neko-chan -Silver Tongue and Toruviel, who not only did a great job on the chapter, but also kicked my lazy ass into gear when I didn't write them for a week or two.<strong>

**I'd also like to thank my lovely reviewers. I responded to all of you, save the anonymous ones, and I hope you guys enjoy the chapter. Thank you to the readers who haven't reviewed, as well, mostly in the hopes that you will do so because of my generous gratitude. ;)**

**Sorry the character introductions were so brief, but I gave you small glimpses of quite a few canon characters, but they had to be a bit fleeting. A whole lot is going to happen in the next chapter, including a close up on certain potions master, a certain pair of twins, and a surprise guest! Dun dun dun!**

**I want feedback like a want Mimbulus Mimbletonia juice: popping all over the place and covering Harry from head to toe. **

**Get it? I'm so silly. **

**-Toes**


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